Patriot Act Clouds Picture For Tech 203
Harperdog writes "Politico has a piece on how the Patriot Act is interfering with U.S. firms trying to do business overseas in the area of cloud computing. Here's a quote: 'The Sept. 11-era law was supposed to help the intelligence community gather data on suspected terrorists. But competitors overseas are using it as a way to discourage foreign countries from signing on with U.S. cloud computing providers like Google and Microsoft: Put your data on a U.S.-based cloud, they warn, and you may just put it in the hands of the U.S. government.'"
Probably, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is remotely accessing a hard drive on your home computer in any way, shape or form like tethering? Did you not look at the product that was linked or do you have no clue what tethering is?
And what do think think has been taken away? It's an external hard drive that has all the functionality of an external hard drive. It includes some software to make it easier to set it up for remote access from other PCs, your phone, etc., but that adds functionality, it doesn't decrease it. What do you think is mi
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Not the same at all.
The old phone tethering you speak of was disabled on newer phones and you had to pay an extra charge for it.
Remote access to a hard drive is not disabled in any way. Nothing prevents you from manually setting up remote access to a drive and they still sell the drives without the package for a reduced price. Western Digital's offering simply includes, for an extra price, a software package that supposedly makes it easier to set up the remote access.
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Wow. You didn't even look at the link you're talking about, did you. Western Digital's personal cloud storage is,a local hard drive.
Go on. Look. Tell me how that is not a hard drive when the photo is of a drive, the advertising copy speaks of the drive, the contents line says "network drive" and includes a comparison to other local hard drives.and even mistakenly includes the drive's previous name, "My Book Live home network drive" (this is, after all, a rebranded product meant to take advantage of the o
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Oh, and in case you're too lazy or stupid to scroll up and find the link you responded to, here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Personal-Cloud-Storage/dp/B0047FL85U [amazon.com]
Go on. Take a good long look at it and hang your idiot head in shame.
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>Here's me in the very first response to your first post.
>
>We used to have "networked hard disks" or "file servers". Then we started having cloud servers which did the same but you lost the personal control. Now the marketing people started selling a "personal cloud" which is in fact exactly what you were selling originally
We still have file servers and network servers. Cloud servers did not take away our personal control over network servers and file servers, they simply gave people an option to
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You would almost think the U.S. government WANTS U.S. companies to relocate overseas.
Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't matter if you comply with EU data protection rules, we still don't trust you.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly, since there are US laws which contradict the very protections that EU safe harbor rules require, we CAN'T trust US companies to abide by our data protection requirements. We are bound by law to ensure these protections, so sending the data to the US is arguably illegal. The only reason why anyone still does it is that enforcement is so lax.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you kindly step up the enforcement, then? We all know that the US government isn't going to listen to it's citizens, but it's just as obvious that they listen to corporations. Maybe if Amazon, Google and a few other major cloud storage providers take a huge hit, they'll tell the government to fix the situation.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe if Amazon, Google and a few other major cloud storage providers take a huge hit, they'll tell the government to fix the situation.
No, shops large enough to have influence are likewise large enough to simply setup European subsidiaries, with hardware in Europe and a cadre of European compliance officers, and it's business as usual. "You can choose a Region to optimize for latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements ... Objects stored in a Region never leave the Region unless you transfer them out. For example, objects stored in the EU (Ireland) Region never leave the EU." http://aws.amazon.com/s3/ [amazon.com] (emphasis added)
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But can they really get around the Patriot Act this way? After all, if they're American companies, with their headquarters located in Silicon Valley, aren't they still required to follow American laws, including any wholly-owned subsidiaries they may have? (disclaimer: IANAL) Some company located in Switzerland, for example, with absolutely zero physical presence in the USA, would not have this problem or this potential legal liability.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)
It is illegal in BC, Canada to store any personal information on any server physically residing in the USA. This law is an acknowledgement that the USA Patriot act can lead to Canadian information, protected by Canadian laws, being revealed without judicial oversight.
We don't care if it is a cloud or not, it can't be stored in the USA.
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As an American, I think more countries (and the rest of the Canadian provinces too) should enact laws like this.
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As an American, I think more countries (and the rest of the Canadian provinces too) should enact laws like this.
I recently applied for a job in Canada. The one I applied for as well as several others I saw said that precedent is given to Canadians over foreign nationals. I've never seen an American government or industry job make the same disclaimer. President is the only thing that comes to mind.
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That's because in the USA, preference is given to whoever they can pay the least, no matter how incompetent they are at the job.
I'm reminded of a Dilbert comic where the PHB says he only wants top-notch candidates, but wants to pay average salaries.
Most advanced countries have governments which look out for the interests of their citizens, who vote for them. It's not like this in the US, where the government only looks out for the interests of lobbyists and large corporations.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)
To whom do these laws apply? All U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens, entities and organizations located in or out of the United States (including any subsidiary or foreign offices overseas) must comply with the USA PATRIOT Act, Executive Order 13224, and Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations. Further, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 and other resolutions have the force of international law binding on all member states.
http://www.mott.org/resources/patriotact/faqs.aspx#q6 [mott.org]
Whether the Patriot Act could be used to compel a U.S. parent to disclose records held by a Canadian subsidiary remains a matter of debate. The B.C. Commissioner Report found that it is a “reasonable possibility” that the FISA Court would order production of documents that are within the custody or control of a U.S. company, such as a U.S. parent with access to records held by a Canadian subsidiary.[14] If a U.S.-linked company makes a disclosure to U.S. authorities without the consent of the Canadian individuals named, this could result in the Canadian organization that transferred the information breaching Canadian privacy legislation unless the disclosure meets an exception in the applicable Canadian privacy legislation. http://library.findlaw.com/2005/May/10/245866.html [findlaw.com]
Any company that is wholly-owned by a U.S.-based corporation cannot guarantee that the data will not leave its customer-designated datacenters or servers. Google would not budge from its first and final response, and Microsoft could not offer guarantees to not move data outside the EU under any circumstances. These subsidiary companies and their U.S.-parent corporations cannot provide the assurances that data is safe in the UK or the EEA, because the USA PATRIOT Act not only affects the U.S.-based corporations but also their worldwide wholly-owned subsidiary companies based within and outside the European Union.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/case-study-how-the-usa-patriot-act-can-be-used-to-access-eu-data/8805?pg=4&tag=content;siu-container [zdnet.com]
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Very good analysis. It seems to me that some foreign governments need to proactively warn these subsidiaries in their countries that they risk jail time if they follow the orders of their US-owned parent companies.
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Stop squashing my hopes and dreams, dammit. The government and the 1% do a good enough job of that without you helping them :p
A new way? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Although the United States of America (US) is not included in the European Commission list, the Commission considers that personal data sent to the US under the “Safe Harbor” scheme is adequately protected. When a US company signs up to the Safe Harbor arrangement, they agree to: follow seven principles of information handling; and be held responsible for keeping to those principles by the Federal Trade Commission or other oversight schemes. Certain types of companies cannot sign up to Safe Harbor. View a list of the companies signed up to the Safe Harbor arrangement on the US Department of Commerce website. In July 2007, the EU and the US signed an agreement to legitimise and regulate the transfer of passenger name record information (PNR) from EU airlines to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This agreement is regarded as providing adequate protection for the personal data in question.
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an agreement to legitimise
In other words, they were already doing it. The idea was to stop them breaking the law without stopping them doing what they were doing.
This proves that US companies are unsuitable for having any contact with my data but, as others have said, it pre-dates the "Patriot Act". The difference is that US citizens now have bigger penalties for not doing it. Previously it used to be just your disregard for my privacy in favour of your bottom line.
Well why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Friends,
I don't understand these companies' hesitance when deciding to do business with US-based companies. Sure, the data may need to be seen by the government, but we aren't China; the data will be kept safe while our researchers are doing God's work by looking for pedophiles, rapists, and terrorists. Perhaps they could even insert biblical references into the cloud, in order to spread the Word to those who would not otherwise hear it.
Your Friend,
Jake
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Please - someone tell me that this is snark.
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Re:Well why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not anti-theist, it's anti USA-theism. Europe has plenty of Christians, after all, as do many other parts of the world, but Christianity as it's practiced in the USA is a very weird and disturbing mix of fundamentalist religion and politics. After all, you can go into any typical American "evangelical Christian" (aka fundamentalist) church and they'll preach about how the USA needs to wage wars in various countries, how you (the congregation) needs to vote for these particular politicians, how we need to worship The Invisible Hand, how rich people are better people than the rest of us because God has blessed them with so much money and "success", etc. Now obviously, not all Christians in America believe this crap, but the numbers of fundies has actually outgrown the number of "mainstream" Protestants in the USA, and they are a very strong political force (esp. since they are so politically involved, unlike most other religions). This of course is completely different from the types of Christianity practiced in Europe for example, where fundamentalism is almost non-existent.
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fundamentalism is almost non-existent
Christian fundamentalists here just do not like the word as people associate it with fundamentalists in the USA. There are plenty. They are just very different from yours.
Their politics are often middle of the road or slightly left-of-centre but this stance is seen as screaming Marxist if you regard your democrats as left of centre. A lot of them are pacifists, some are even Conscientious Objectors and a large amount of them were very unhappy about the illegal inva
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The ones here probably don't usually come out and say "vote for Bachmann!", but there's easy ways of talking around it so without naming names, they make it quite clear who they want you to vote for.
As for the Democrats being left-of-center, do you mean the Democrats in the 1990s, the Democrats in the early 2000s, or the Democrats in 2011 who are even farther right than Bush ever was? :-) Compared to today's Democrats, just about anyone would be a "screaming Marxist" by comparison.
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Repeat after me: evangelism != fundamentalism.
They're not totally mutually exclusive, there's a huge amount of overlap between the two. Most of the megachurches that are so popular now are both.
Any preacher, of any stripe, who does this in the US risks losing his church's 501(c)3 status. The IRS takes a dim view of PACs pretending to be churches.
They don't quite come out and say "vote for Bachmann" (or "vote for Romney" in the LDS churches), but they're pretty good at making sure you know who they do and d
Goes both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
'Warn' ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who can blame them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Four thoughts:
They may well be right in thinking their data will be more accessible to the US government.
If I were an overseas competitor, I'd certainly use this as a reason to not to use a US provider. In a heartbeat.
The law of unintended consequences bites the US yet again.
This wouldn't be an issue if the US government hadn't acted the way it has over the last 10 years. The US government has so little trust overseas that people have no trouble thinking the worst of it. Karma is a bitch.
Re:Who can blame them? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all providers are based in a single nation.
Amazon, for instance, has AWS locations around the world, although that probably doesn't help you much given their track record.
But rsync.net (I am the founder) has storage locations in Zurich and Hong Kong, in addition to the US. These sites are protected, just like the US sites, by the Warrant Canary:
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt [rsync.net]
So while I agree that everyone in the world should be wary of USA PATRIOT, it's not a given that non-US consumers have to avoid US providers across the board.
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That's an interesting scheme but it's not very specific. If they stop updating the page, all you know is that they got a request. You have no idea if it was for your data or someone elses.
If they stop posting updates, then they got a request.
The only safe assumption at that point is that ALL of their datais now compromised. Yours too.
Any other assumption would simply be foolish and dangerous to make.
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That is freaking brilliant! I'm not in a related field, but am still kicking myself for not having thought of that myself.
The Canary Warrant is not enough to make it safe to store data in the US, it just lets one know that they've been owned.
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The US isn't being run by Bush. It's being run by Obama (who the Europeans gave a Nobel Prize to). Bush lost the election; it's time putting the blame where it belongs.
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Obama's done right and wrong and isn't a saint by a long shot, however it's going to take time to undo the damage bush caused, him leaving office does not immediately end wars and fix global depressions.
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You're kidding?
The great Reagan bombed Lybia almost 30 years ago in a shot-first-tell-congress-later manner. The USA has actions all the time that the President doesn't tell Congress...
As far as secrecy, Obama got nothing on Bush. Hell, under Bush the VICE President claimed he didn't have to produce documents demanded by CONGRESS! Bush didn't bother to reply to FOIA he didn't "feel" was safe... They just "national security" classified everything they could... And Fox News and others rolled along with it. O
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And Obama is different from Bush how?
http://nothingchanged.org/ [nothingchanged.org]
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/170 [thecomicseries.com]
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More important Bush didn't TRY to appoint a successor! The Republican party just let both the President and Vice walk away in the middle of a war and financial crisis. It was obvious that Cheaney was not physically fit to be President in Bush's first term... There was no way he would have physically stood up if he needed to step in. Yet the party didn't replace him with a real contender to maintain the continuity of leadership after the election??? The crop of candidates put up by Republicans was insultingl
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I know, it's a brain fart. It is true, however, that the Republicans lost the election. It's time to stop blaming bush for things that he may have started (or not in some cases) but which were done by Obama.
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To be fair, many countries' governments have their hands in "everything" these days. The 1700s are long since over, get used to it. For instance, in China, the government is intimately involved in many industries, and many companies are partially or wholly owned by the State (usually depending on their strategic importance). In Europe, the governments again are intimately involved in many industries (such as healthcare in some countries, energy, etc.), and have very strong regulatory powers. This isn't
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While the governments of Europe obviously aren't perfect, they don't show the utterly blatant abuses of power the US govt does, and they actually seem to provide some decent services for their citizens in exchange for their tax money, whereas the US govt takes our money, and spends far more (by borrowing from the Chinese and printing lots of money), doing things that don't help the citizens at all, and doing absolutely nothing that benefits them.
To be fair - governments in Europe are not doing that well either on the debt front (see the ongoing Euro-crisis), here governments have taken the money, borrowed more from the Chinese (and US) and handed out benefits which they really couldn't have afforded in the first place to everybody...
But back to privacy and on topic: Yes, this is "old news" in the sense that US has always been a bit of a bogeyman used in negotiations, before it was NSA or some of the other three letter agencies and it was implied th
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To be fair - governments in Europe are not doing that well either on the debt front (see the ongoing Euro-crisis), here governments have taken the money, borrowed more from the Chinese (and US) and handed out benefits which they really couldn't have afforded in the first place to everybody...
Yes I realize the Euro govts aren't exactly financial wizards either, but at least for all that debt, they actually provide useful social services for their citizens. Here in the USA, we have tons of debt, but zero use
It is common sense, not the patriot act. (Score:5, Informative)
If you put your data in the cloud, you put it in the hands of not just the US government, but every government the cloud company does business with. And also in the hands of every underpaid employee in the company; and while some companies may claim otherwise, their claims are unverifiable and unenforceable. "Cloud" services have their place - it is for data that is intrinsically public and ephemeral. Nobody should ever trust any cloud service with data that is proprietary or private or irreplaceable.
Most obviously, the "free" services are predicated on exploiting the value of their users as product to customers that are not the users. The model makes sense in some cases, for example a forum, where the shared public content is willing coproduced by users of the forum, exchanging their content creation efforts for use of the forum itself, the forum exploiting that content to attract eyeballs to advertisers that pay the bills.
While there are strong logical reasons why cloud services are intrinsically untrustable (ultimately, he who owns the hardware, owns the data), a simple thought experiment proves the folly: how hard is it to bribe an employee of a cloud service to give you inappropriate access to someone's data? Do you think you couldn't find one employee in one company somewhere? While one may be able to find companies that are currently resistant to easy attacks, cloud companies come and go like the .coms that they are are, and with inevitable waning economic optimism, so too wanes employee loyalty. In the eventual asset transactions that follow, acquiring companies of even trusted entities are unknowns and customers have no recourse and no authority.
At best, the loss of yet another fleeting cloud service means only the loss of the associated data and whatever codependent business line the cloud service customer bet on the serial risk of the success of the cloud company itself.
The premise of handing your proprietary data to another person for remote, invisible processing and care is fundamentally flawed. Your interests are not aligned and their interests will evolve and ultimately diverge or fail.
Foreign companies (and US as well) are well advised to be wary of cloud services.
No kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems like trying to spin a general fact of life in terms of "the cloud" (a term I dislike) in to an anti-US thing.
Your data is subject to being looked at by whoever controls it. Doesn't matter if they are supposed to, they can. The idea that the US government is the only one that looks in on data in their country is quite silly.
Also to expand on your bribery note, this could well be done by the government too in any country, but not as direct bribery: Find an employee who is patriotic to your country at the service, recruit them, and use them to get access to data you want. Could be quite easy since even a very moral person might agree. The government sells them on the idea that they need this access for legit work and it is just much quicker and cheaper to do it back channel rather than via the courts.
Basically if you give up your data to someone else, you have to understand that means others can have access. That is going to include their government. Don't think this is unique to the US. Other countries participate in the intelligence game just as much. Look up some information on the British Security Service or Secret Intelligence Service, or the French DGSE.
Put down the flag and think of it as juristiction (Score:2)
With respect that is missing the point entirely. If your local government does something objectionable with your supposedly confidential data there are legal mechanisms to do something about it. If a foreign power does something with the data there isn't much you can do about it.
In the case of the PATRIOT act it's an explicit warning that anything hosted in the USA is fair game and there is nothing you ca
As a European (Score:3, Insightful)
But competitors overseas are using it as a way to discourage foreign countries from signing on with U.S. cloud computing providers like Google and Microsoft
It's not just competitors highlighting that important fact! As a European, I personally don't want my data to fall into the wrong hands, and the hands of the US corporation-state are most definitely wrong.
lol (Score:3)
If people think their own government security/spy agencies aren't hacking (or coercing their way) into their own (non-US) infrastructure, then that's more a statement about their own gullibility than those mean, nasty Americans and their dastardly Patriot Act.
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Difference is that we, like China, have declared that our secret police have carte blanche to examine your data.
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Yeah. I'm trying to figure out just who anybody would trust as a cloud provider for sensitive data outside the US. Great Britain? France? Turkmenistan? If international 'cloud' providers are bringing this up then pot, meet kettle.
Really, we've been about this time and time again. Some stuff you can put in 'the cloud'. Other stuff ought to be locked in your basement. Your own basement.
Laughable (Score:4, Interesting)
The "cloud" analogy always seemed like "newspeak" to me, designed to get the customer to NOT think about where their data is "Don't worry we will take care of it" while their data is sitting on some cheesy server with questionable security practices and the usual disgruntled suspects.
Seriously what next? A service to wipe your ass because you can't be bothered? (note to self research iPhone controlled bidet)
Since it still has to sit on a server somewhere it might as well be your own server then deploy software that makes it accessible to you on the road, in addition how many jobs does this destroy for IT personal, some of the few decent paying jobs left in the USA.
To me the "cloud" is as ridiculous as Facebook, if you're stupid enough to put your data on FB you deserve what you get.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Funny)
The "cloud" analogy always seemed like "newspeak" to me, designed to get the customer to NOT think about where their data is
Whenever I say "the cloud", I have to wave my arms around and look at the ceiling. I just can't help myself.
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note to self research iPhone controlled bidet
Not quite an iphone, but one with a remote control [amazon.com]
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This is closer to (perhaps beyond) the GP's idea:
http://theweek.com/article/index/214332/the-6400-toilet-with-its-own-tablet [theweek.com]
We're MUCH safer then the other guy... TRUST us... (Score:4, Insightful)
Salesman: "That's right, since we don't operate within the borders of those capitalist pig Americans, we're way more trustworthy then them... We absolutely promise that we'll never give away your data to the US government, no matter how many times they ask us. ............... Wait... what just happened?
Customer: That's great... but what about your own government? Do you ever give data up to them?
Salesman: Huh? Well, of course not! At least, not without a court order, anyway... or a law which says we have to for some reason.
Customer: Ah... So how is that different from the US based companies again?
Salesman: Ummm... but... capitalist pigs... ummm...
Customer: I see. Well, this has been very illuminating indeed. I'll get back to you on my decision real soon.
Salesman:
Re:We're MUCH safer then the other guy... TRUST us (Score:5, Informative)
Except that said US court orders can be executed by a secret court with no oversight. Pretty much like China's.
Canada Too.. (Score:5, Informative)
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When constructing a strawman, consider that you may just not know what you're talking about.
Very real issue (Score:5, Informative)
We deal with this on a daily basis. Our clients (large Fortune 500 corporations) are requesting that we do not store data in the US. I personally think it has more to do with the fact that they are up to shady financial maneuvers than terrorism, but the end result is the same. It is just another nail in the economic coffin of the United States. The oft claimed, "It is too expensive/risky to do business in the States" rears its ugly head again.
The article talks about "cloud" providers, which we are not. We are more of a SaaS shop, but the regulatory challenges are the same. It all comes down to the client wanting to feel like their data is safe, and that they will have some expectation of privacy. With the United States government declaring the right to come in and seize data (the life blood of any company in this day and age) without any form of real due process, corporations are deciding that they do not want to subject themselves to that unnecessary liability.
It's true (Score:5, Informative)
I work at a 2,000 person organization outside the US. The institution has formally adopted a policy that no sensitive data can be hosted in the US, precisely due to the Patriot Act.
Don't look for logic in this. They would rather we use a server sitting under some IT guy's desk than use, say, DropBox, which is based on encrypted S3 storage. But perceptions are everything.
Dropbox encrypted? (Score:5, Informative)
This has come up in the past. While dropbox uses S3 for the base encryption layer, the staff at dropbox have access to the encryption keys. In fact because of a FTC complaint [wired.com] dropbox had to change the terms of use as explained on their blog [dropbox.com] To clearly indicate that while the contents are encrypted, that dropbox staff still have access to be able to comply with the US justice system. And the US can order the dropbox to disclose the data without telling you that the data was disclosed. At least if the courts come after the data in the server sitting under some IT guy's desk, you will know about it.
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Well, fair enough. But my point was really that the odds of having your data requested by the US government is vanishingly small compared to the risk of having that "server under the desk" hacked or physically stolen.
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Given the security problems DropBox has had, no sane person let alone corporation would use it for anything remotely important.
Attn: Soulskill Post Is In the Wrong Department (Score:2)
Should be the "All Your Data Are Belong To Us" department.
Cloud computing is pie in the sky (Score:3, Interesting)
This will show who's asleep at the wheel. All the services offering SaaS and Cloud-based services including anti-virus, mail storage, NAS, vulnerability management, the list grows - come at a cost. Namely who are the vendors and who are the customers? When a business had all their enterprise servers on-site there was no question who managed, maintained, and monitored the data at rest or in motion. Now, if a company (and what happens if the "company" is a hospital or retailer having to meet auditory compliance) used a cloud-based service offering they have no way of knowing who is managing, monitoring, maintaining or accessing their data. This is off-shore outsourcing gone awry. It may make sense briefly on the bottom-line, but the bean counters are not considering the extended costs of security and vulnerability. Put your trusted data in someone else's hands and you are assuming they are just as, if not more, safe as you would be.
We'll fix this in a jiffy! (Score:2)
We'll just amend the law so that our honored corporate personages are no longer subject to these ignominities while keeping our human scum personages subjugated to the full extent of our data-searching wrath! After all, corporations never support illegal activities, but humans? You can't trust them any farther than you can throw them (or bomb them, or lock them up, etc.).
ECHELON and Room 641A (Score:2)
And just how is the USofA different than China? (Score:2)
Comparing the cloud security in both countries is like comparing... ummm?
Let's see, in China they shoot you in the back of the head, in America the poison you. In America the rich go Scott free, in China they still might shoot you. In China there really isn't any due process, in America the Gov can suspend it at will. In China there are low paying jobs, in America there are no jobs.
Spock said, "Only Nixon could go to China".
True (Score:3)
Hi,
First: I am working in sales and i am using this pitch (rarely, but it happens). I have no bad conscience about it, since i am doing the customer a service. If he uses a U.S. based cloud for personal data of German citizens without their consent, he would be breaking German law.
The main problem with the Patriot Act is, that it allows seizures of data without court approval and is therefor violating due process as it is defined here (e.g. those infamous "national security letters"). While the U.S. company cannot be sued for following such lettters, the German customer who stored data there can be held liable.
The problem for U.S. companies is even bigger: Even if they store the data in a subsidary (e.g. Ireland), the Patriot Act forces them to hand over data from those data centers as well.
So as long as the Patriot Act is at it is, i will use it as sales argument.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I am simplifying legal issues here, didn't want to post 10 pages of text. The gist is correct.
put it in the hands of the U.S. government. (Score:2)
As if there's any other way?
They (USA) even need our credit card transactions without sharing theirs.
(yes I am in the EU zone)
So in this war on terror that they cannot win what will be the next thing they need after our data?
The battlefield USA thing?
Do away with the constitution?
So it's truth w.r.t. the data.
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You don't mind me having a look around your house, do you? Oh, don't bother letting your wife know that we're going to be in - wouldn't want to bother her or anything. What? You don't want strangers poking around? What are you hiding?
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
I've noticed that you have cleaning products under your sinks. Didn't you know that in this state, it is a felony to have cleaning supplies in reach of children under the age of X? Oh, is that your 2 year old son. I'm sorry, I'll have to take you to jail now.
This is a hypothetical, but it is representative of how the government works. More often than not, they are coming in to look for things that will aid them in building a case against you even though they may seem completely benign. While searching your "nothing to hide stash" they come across a picture of you from 10 years ago with a college buddy who is now on a "watch" list, or a family member who speaks out just a little too much about the government.
Just because you think you have nothing to hide, does not actually mean that you have nothing to hide and shouldn't hide anything.
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Not quite:
"I've noticed that you have cleaning products under your sinks. Didn't you know that those chemicals could be combined to make a bomb. I'm sorry, I'll have to take you to jail now. Whats that, you want to resist arrest, how silly. I'm sorry about your daddy 2 year old son, but he was a terrorist. Now please ready yourself to be probed for further explosives by our professional TSA agent."
You were close, but not quite there.
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That's odd, coming from an AC. why don't you post your name, address and telephone number so we can make sure?
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Because your birth certificate lists "notsanguine" as your legal name, right?
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Because your birth certificate lists "notsanguine" as your legal name, right?
I did not say "Sure come on in. I have nothing to hide." If (and the irony is wonderful) the AC really felt that way, he/she/it wouldn't have a problem posting that information. I, on the other hand, value my privacy. I could just as easily posted as AC (okay, not just as easily I'd have to check the "Post anonymously" checkbox too), but I chose not to. And so, at least within /. my comments are coming from a known quantity.
It wouldn't surprise me if you are, in fact, the AC spouting this ridiculous, tr
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Except you can see my posting history to know that I'm perfectly fine with spouting shit off without using AC. But nice ad hom, though.
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screw you. I'm posting AC too because I hate logging into my account. I use a proxy, noscript, different browsers, and don't need my comments tracked. You post your name, address, and telephone number first.
Oh, you mean you do those things because you value your privacy, eh? So why are your trolling about "come on in, I have nothing to hide." Please.
Re:what's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The government should not be able to access the records of any business and or any citizens without the correct due process that is afforded not only by our constitution, but also by the laws of the business' / citizen's country of residence.
FTFY
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I do not "LolCats". I do however have client data, contracts, billing statements, PO data etc stored.
Completely innocent and non-suspect is relative. I can store something on a cloud service that may be perfectly legal for me to do, yet in the host country may not. I've now committed a crime haven't I?
You don't have to be the person that is suspect in the beginning, there is a reason for data mining. Having someone / something snoop all data they can get a hold of in the hopes that they find something they
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I do not "LolCats". I do however have client data, contracts, billing statements, PO data etc stored.
Stored on someone else's server that you don't control? That's pretty fucking dumb of you.
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see the issue. Unless your using the cloud to store kiddy porn, your terrorism plots, or other illegal shit why do you care? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Because my payroll records, confidential company databases/documents, strategic plans, company emails and other stuff isn't anyone else's business even if there's nothing illegal immoral or fattening about them.
Are you really a moron, or do you just play one on /.?
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Why are you storing confidential data on a server controlled by someone else? That's a dumb idea even without this law existing.
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Why are you storing confidential data on a server controlled by someone else? That's a dumb idea even without this law existing.
I didn't say I was. I was merely pointing out, with *examples* just how moronic the OPs statements were.
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Yes you made an example of how to be an idiot. Storing confidential days.on someone else's sever and expecting it to stay private is pretty fucking stupid. If I was your customer I'd be pretty fucking livid.
Yes, this stuff does get on other people's servers (Score:2)
There's a lot of stuff in the "cloud" that shouldn't be there would never have got there without slick salesfolk completely bypassing anyone with a clue.
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fascists rely on the Just World fallacy to back up their arguments.
The world is just. Shit happens to you because you did something wrong.
It's a load of horse-shit.
--
BMO
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I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
--JMS
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Actually, it was Marcus Cole
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Posted by someone who also uses an internet pseudonym. Priceless.
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