US Unhappy With Australians Storing Data On Australian Shores 386
Fluffeh writes "The United States' global trade representative has strongly criticized a perceived preference on the part of large Australian organizations for hosting their data on-shore in Australia, claiming it created a significant trade barrier for U.S. technology firms. A number of U.S. companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely the Department of Defence had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that 'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments.' Recently, Acting Victorian Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall highlighted some of the privacy concerns with cloud computing, particularly in its use by the local government. He said the main problems were the lack of control over stored data and privacy, in overseas cloud service providers."
ERROR (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
The US believes in being fair. They need the Australian government & companies to store data on US servers so it can be fairly stolen by them not just China.
They're too lazy/incapable of getting the data themselves.
The problem is the Patriot Act (Score:5, Informative)
In Canada, it is illegal for public agencies or IT companies serving them to store customer/member data on US-operated servers because the Patriot Act contravenes Canadian privacy laws. Many other Canadian associations and businesses have similar policies, because Patriot Act searches would violate their infomration privacy policy.
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Re:ERROR (Score:5, Informative)
No, this is typical US attitude. They think they own the world.
If the rest of the world would tell the US to piss off, maybe things could get better. Instead, the US throws their totalitarian weight around and we get bought-off British judges trying to extradite British citizens to the US for conduct that occurred in Britain, between British citizens, that was 100% legal under British law because the US MafiAA wants to try to have the British citizen prosecuted under US fascist law. [wired.co.uk]
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Informative)
yep. it's amazing the US is complaining here, but then again our country is on a constant downward spiral into idiocy. can't say I'm surprised.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I saw the documentary "Idiocracy".
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. is like the Roman Empire in its last years. Trying to boss people around and not being too sucsessful because the power had waned.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Interesting)
No more federal money to Africa, Europe, the UN, or anywhere else
You're giving federal money to Europe ?!? That's news to me. As for the UN, last I checked your were years behind in your payments while being one of the main 'users' of the UN. As for Africa, when you 'donate' money on the condition that they kick out organisations that give out free condoms, then fuck you.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much.
US to World: Drop your tariffs! Embrace free trade (that our farmers are good at)!
World to US: OK, you first.
US to World: No! We have to think of *our* farmers first! (US goes off and complains to WTC)
It's how the World Bank wields so much power, using economic terrorism against poor countries.
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The judge in the extradition case did actually rule that O'Dwyer had violated British laws. So please don't make statements that O'Dwyer's activities were legal under British law when in fact there is a court ruling that they weren't.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013803/Student-Richard-ODwyer-can-be-extradited-over-TV-website.html [telegraph.co.uk]
"However, Judge Purdy rejected the argument from Mr Oâ(TM)Dwyerâ(TM)s barrister, Ben Cooper of Doughty Street Chambers, because of the control the student h
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Except posting links isn't illegal.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would we ever extradite someone just because they helped someone else copy something? Where are our priorities? We gain nothing and lose much from wasting our time on such trivial nonsense.
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Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope not he/she doesn't get modded to -1.
Is there a cloud based company that will not take a peek at any of the information stored on it's servers? Does anyone really believe that? Most companies are looking for any advantage they can get. If they happen to 'see' something and patent it first it might be really hard for a small company or single person to prove that in court. Meanwhile said company could be raking in the cash on that idea/data.
I am in the US. I work with people who do a lot if research. Most of them like the cloud idea for storing their research information. They like it until they realize that the host of the cloud can read their data.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for a cloud provider. I have root on all of the servers. I have never, nor have I ever even wanted too, looked at any of our customers data. If fact, I'm not even sure that I could: if I even knew how!
If you think that all Cloud providers do all day is read email, you should probably tighten the tinfoil helmet. Or perhaps you could just accept that we have better things to do and really don't give a toss about your Crayola sketched plans for world domination.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
Claiming you have no idea if you could look at my data is not reassuring.
Reassuring would be if you were certain you couldn't.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Informative)
And to the trade representative, boo-fucking-hoo. Instead of allowing US companies to guarantee data privacy, even when hosted outside of the country, the Patriot Act forces them to guarantee the opposite. As much as I would like to use a lot of the cloud services out there, I can't just because of that.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually worse than that. You could do your due diligence, check out all the options for cloud hosting, do your own background checks on all the executives, managers, and operators/admins of your preferred provider and think you are safe. Then one day, the company could be bought out by "Big Cloud Operations", who fire all the trustworthy operators and outsource administration to India or China so as to increase profits and their executive bonuses. Within days or weeks, your data and trade secrets are in the hands of your competition and there's nothing you can do about it. Oh sure, you could sue them in civil court if you have a few million for lawyers, and by the time you can get a judgment a few years later, they've closed shop, the execs have raked in the cash, and there's just a shell with nothing to pay for your award.
The only thing that you should keep on a public cloud is public data (i.e. public web sites for Internet presence, advertising, and support ). Anything that provides a substantial competitive advantage should be kept on a private virtualization infrastructure or else you're playing Russian roulette with the company's future. The last 10 years should make it pretty clear that If it can be done and there's a strong profit motive, it's only a matter of time until somebody tries it, regardless of how illegal or unethical it is. OK, that's always been true, but the last 10 years sadly make it clear that IT is no exception.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Funny)
PROOF!!!!!
" your Crayola sketched plans for world domination"
I thought you said you didn't look at my data mr. AC
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for a cloud provider. I have root on all of the servers. I have never, nor have I ever even wanted too, looked at any of our customers data. If fact, I'm not even sure that I could: if I even knew how!
Of course, because you're not doing it - nobody else is.
Sound logic.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Informative)
If you have root access, you surely *can*.
If you have root access and don't know how, I would avoid hiring your company's services at any cost!
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Even so, if you found some particularly juicy bits of information and then sold them to some offshore company for a handsome sum, what could they do to you? Or how would they even found out, until quite a bit later? By then, the damage is done and the trade secret is in the hands of the clients' competitors.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Informative)
http://wuala.com/ [wuala.com]
Based in Europe, and uses client-side encryption. They can't peek at your data even if they wanted to.
"It's like Dropbox, but actually usable!"
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Informative)
Is there a cloud based company that will not take a peek at any of the information stored on it's servers?
Yes: SpiderOak [spideroak.com]. They are physically incapable of looking at your data [spideroak.com]:
Your SpiderOak data is readable to you alone. Most online storage systems only encrypt your data during transmission, meaning anyone with physical access to the servers your data is stored on (such as the company's staff) could have access to it. Or, even if your data is encrypted during storage, your password (or set of encryption keys) is often stored along with your data, thus making its easily decoded by anyone with local access to those servers.
With SpiderOak, you create your password on your own computer -- not on a web form received by SpiderOak servers. Once created, a strong key derivation function is used to generate encryption keys using that password, and no trace of your original password is ever uploaded to SpiderOak with your stored data.
SpiderOak's encryption is comprehensive -- even with physical access to the storage servers, SpiderOak staff cannot know even the names of your files and folders. On the server side, all that SpiderOak staff can see, are sequentially numbered containers of encrypted data.
This means that you alone have responsibility for remembering your password or 'Password Hint' (which you can create to help you remember) allowing SpiderOak to create a true 'zero-knowledge environment' – keeping your data as safe and secure as it can possibly be.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but under the US Patriot Act, the US government has granted themselves unlimited, and secret access to any and all data stored on a US server.
I've done some contract work for the Canadian Government, and it is illegal to store certain kinds of information on US based servers because it would potentially violate Canadian law. There are companies who have arms-length subsidiaries whose job it is to handle government data that could not be allowed to be stored in the US. This is no different than similar issues [zdnet.com] with US owned companies [eweek.com] accessing EU [pcworld.com] data [forbes.com] because of the Patriot Act.
The US can claim their companies are being hurt by this, but the fact of the matter is, the US is not a trustworthy place to store your data unless you are also going to accept them potentially spying on your citizens.
This isn't a trade issue. It's a trust issue.
So if America wants to keep their Patriot Act which tries to violate the laws of other countries, their businesses are going to lose out in those markets if it would mean those companies can't comply with local laws and the US law at the same time.
Sorry, but these aren't spurious claims -- they're well established issues which have been covered before.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you remember the question/story on /., that went like this: Is the Government Scaring Web Businesses Out of the US?
Well, I said then that it is not just web businesses. [slashdot.org]
It is not just web business that is being destroyed in USA due to this destruction of freedoms and liberties (and Patriot Act is a very ironically named piece of the most unpatriotic legislation that USA has probably ever passed so far, notwithstanding the latest NDAA bill).
Patriot Act has destroyed the competition in the securities, finance, investment brokerage, banking business, and of-course all this information businesses as well.
You see, when USA was actually a free society, it was after the Civil War and before the Fed was established and IRS started collecting income taxes, that's when everybody wanted to come TO USA to do business, because how free the country was.
Who wants to go TO USA to do business today? Well, if you are a large monopolistic bank, a central bank of some sort, then you want to be friends with the Fed, but those are not companies that produce value, they are in business of stealing everybody's money, that's all.
But all this nonsense designed to 'protect' the people of USA is protecting them alright, protecting them from having an economy and a society. Protecting them from being able to invest or work and from being able to save in their own money.
As to Canada, it should really decouple itself from USA, because it looks like it's going the same path at a somewhat slower pace, it really should take a step back and rethink everything, from its failing medical and pension systems to its central banking mechanism.
P.S.
Canada only started its central bank in 1935 and what good did that do to its economy? The moment when the healthcare became 'single payer' or universal in Canada, it had a good health care system, and because of that inertia it took quite a number of years to start seeing deterioration of the kind, where people are forced into insane lines to get treatment (or you have to be lucky to know a doctor, or maybe you are a politician, then you are OK).
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said it before to you, and I'll say it again ... if you think you'd suddenly end up with some magically perfect society by rolling back that far, I believe you're sorely mistaken.
You'd end up with something like "Escape From New York" as your society would fall apart.
And, please, don't bother telling me again how the Austrian School of economics and Ron Paul magically prove all of your points. I don't feel like having that discussion again. You might as well try to tell me how the bible proves something scientific.
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you looked around? Collectively, people aren't rational actors. The economic assumptions that the populace are rational actors acting on perfect information, and that the people in that market would never attempt to cheat, lie or steal is what finally made me realize your model of economics is based on untenable axioms. To me, it's your system which tries to make people into something they're not. People have been cooperating to eke out a better life for thousands of years. Precisely because it is in their best interest.
People do irrational things. People don't know what's always best for them.
Your system boils down to "fuck everyone else, as long as I have my gun to protect myself I can make it". That's not a "society", that's an uneasy peace since sooner or later one of these people who wants to win is going to remember it's far easier to just take it. You know, like Somalia.
And you the Easter Bunny. Or, maybe I should say Easter Bunnye since we're adding random e's.
As always, such a stimulating conversation.
I had forgotten how boring this stuff is and why I stopped reading Ayn Rand in the first place. Your rugged individualism is more like anti-social behavior to me. I also understand just how thoroughly committed you are to that viewpoint.
So, roll around in your ideology and fantasies of John Galt or being worthy enough to lick the boots of Dagny Taggart. I outgrew that shit 10 years ago.
Cheers
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Interesting)
I have never doubted the fervor of your beliefs or principles, but I drank the Ayn Rand Kool Aid for 15 years. Then I decided to get over it.
I've just decided that it's completely soulless and without any form of empathy. And I just don't see pure capitalism providing the solutions that those who worship it expect of it. It's become like religious dogma that can't be questioned. It's overly romanticized and fixed and held as infallible.
The more I've watched economics since I gave up on believing the 'libertarian-capitalist' stuff, I'm convinced that a lot of the assumptions of these models is completely wrong. It's like when physicist assume a perfectly spherical cow. It makes the math easy, but it's not accurate.
So when you could see some train wrecks coming (like Greenspan telling people to borrow against their homes because it's "free money") it's hard to believe people who so fervently believe the Free Market Will Fix. It doesn't, it just moves wealth upwards to create serfs out of the schmucks at the bottom. Corporations get rich while everyone else's standard of living goes down ... but, hey, that's Capitalism. That's simply not sustainable. In its current form, Capitalism is eating us.
Sadly, I find that the Right has totally unrealistic economic policies that amount to wishful thinking, and unfortunately, the Left does as well. Both are convinced that if only we'd implement their notion of things, Everything Would Be Alright. But since I've stopped seeing things in black and white, and see a whole lot more shades of grey and nuance as I get older.
I totally think that a society which doesn't want to help pay for itself to operate is going to be in decline. I totally think that actively cultivating an attitude that the rest of the world can fuck off and leave you to fend for yourself eats into you over time and has a tendency to make you an asshole (speaking from personal experience, of course).
I've read and made many of the arguments you make. I just disagree with you as strongly as you believe in what you do. Because there was a time I'd have agreed with you; just not any more.
Cheers. It's been fun. :-P
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It isn't just that, the whole security theater is really affecting it.
Me and my girlfriend were recently looking at plane prices to travel to the UK, and then came the realization that we were actually looking for options that did not make a scale in the US, leaving out pretty much any plane from any airline in the US.
I found it sad =/ (and I have to avoid them)
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As to Canada, it should really decouple itself from USA, because it looks like it's going the same path at a somewhat slower pace, it really should take a step back and rethink everything, from its failing medical and pension systems to its central banking mechanism.
Even better would be if certain portions of the US would decouple themselves from the USA. This business-destroying legislation can't be good for all the tech businesses in Silicon Valley and the northwestern states; they'd be better off on the
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So if America wants to keep their Patriot Act which tries to violate the laws of other countries,
We don't want it. Parts of it violate our own Constitution. Continue your refusal to agree to it's terms, continue to keep your data out of the US. Eventually, if it hurts business enough, and enough people, especially people with money, scream about it, we might get it repealed, or at least scaled back to something that remotely resembles sane and Constitutional.
Re:ERROR (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the US government should try something radical and stop creating the problem?
It's no different in Canada. Governments are essentially legally forbidden from using cloud services that can't guarantee data won't be stored in the US (ie: all the American ones). That's just because of assanine US government policies and their cavalier attitude towards privacy.
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It's not really Australia vs. America issue. Its sensitive data vs. cloud computing.
It's just the Australians seem to have gotten the idea where the Americans haven't. The American Government should be making the same warnings to the American companies about American hosted cloud services. Its a data security thing its not a country thing.
As soon as that data leaves your premises you no longer have control over who sees it, even more so if that data passes over international borders.
And of course there i
Re:ERROR (Score:5, Funny)
*cough* Megaupload *cough* (Score:5, Funny)
The hell you say! Saving data in your own country, so that foreign governments can't judge your citizens by their laws? That's crazy talk, I think you should have a serious conversation with my sponsor, the MPAA.
Re:*cough* Megaupload *cough* (Score:5, Informative)
Re:*cough* Megaupload *cough* (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I see. You must be a proponent of piracy. Just because we shut down one entity and try to extradite one of your citizens who did nothing more than allow his data to flow through routers in the US, you think we're a bunch of out of control bullies who think we can do anything we want, regardless of what any law says....Well, let me tell you...You're right. We are a bunch a bullies who thing we can do anything regardless of what the law says.
As a US citizen, I apologize for the idiots who have taken over our government, and I appreciate your refusal to accept our insane policies. We're fighting the battle here too.
LOLWUT??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would this be a problem? The farther away their "cloud" is, the worse the performance. There's enough of a performance hit just trying to cram all that data through a company's entartube without stretching that tube many thousands of miles for no good reason.
Re:LOLWUT??? (Score:5, Informative)
The US has sufficiently aggressive surveillance and limited privacy protection(and I'm just referring to the stuff that has been declared legal) that it is neither obviously desirable, nor even necessarily possible, for entities in areas with more demanding privacy law to use US-based hosting or storage service.
Second, by the standards of places developed beyond the barter economy, Australia's overseas links are long, not terribly fast, and rather expensive(Also, Telstra...)
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You read my post back-asswards. I'll rephrase for you.
Why is it a problem that Australians want to keep their data in Australia?
Re:LOLWUT??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't that Australians want to keep their data in Australia so much as they're being told that remote storage--especially in the US--is risky. And they're right. The US just doesn't want people to know this and the last thing they want is people from Australia's Ministry of Defense running around and telling people this.
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Canada's privacy commissioner also had similar comments a while back.
Also, if you're doing your tax return (any country) at a income tax preparer chain (ie H&R Block) read the contract carefully...
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Re:LOLWUT??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:LOLWUT??? (Score:5, Informative)
Funny how Americans think that since breaking Enigma helped them win the WW2 so much, they are entitled to have the same advantage over the wole world now.
Umm... that movie where US troops secured the vital Enigma machine wasn't actually accurate. It was the Brits who stole the intact Enigma and the brightest of the Brits who cracked the code and, to a large extent, helped them win the war. (OK, having a whole lot of US planes and bombs and ships and tanks and stuff to DO something with the intercepted data was also quite significant, but the intelligence side of things was all down to the Poms.)
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Unsung heroes (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LOLWUT??? (Score:4, Informative)
It was the Brits who stole the intact Enigma and the brightest of the Brits who cracked the code and, to a large extent, helped them win the war.
Not according to Vasili Mitrokhin [wikipedia.org]. He reported that the Poles had cracked Enigma and handed it all over to the Brits and the French five weeks before WWII broke out, yet another reason why the Poles were rightfully incensed at what happened to Poland at the end of WWII.
Toys - Pram (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that really them throwing their toys out of the pram?!
"How dare the Aussies deny us from intercepting data and shutting down sites by Australian companies and citizens"
I'm an asshole too (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever is in charge of Australia's defence department is an asshole and I happen to agree with him. WHY is it even close to being a good idea to send data out like that and especially in the US? Sorry, but I don't trust the US government.
Two faced (Score:2)
You're kidding, right? (Score:5, Funny)
Australia and New Zealand are notorious for having "pipe problems" due to the long-haul links they have to use, and the US expects them to have all their critical business data travelling those overloaded pipes for the convenience of US agencies and companies??!?!!?!
So the convenience of American firms is now justification for slagging the sound and reasonable business practices of foreign nations?
Navel gazing US again. If they navel gaze any closer they're going to find themselves eyeballing their own stomachs from the inside... :P
Re:You're kidding, right? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just live data located in the US. It's data in Australia managed by a US company that could be subject to a US warrant, or even backups of Aus servers hosted in the US.
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I think the article has more to do with AU preventing the US companies and firms from operating assets (cloud, server farms, hosting, etc) in AU, and providing services to the AU gov, rather then hauling all that traffic back to US soil, and using US firm resources here.
That said, I do see major issues with companies storing data on US assets (whether abroad or not). Especially when we read articles about whole sale data monitoring by US gov entities (FBI, NSA, CIA, take your pick), whether legal or not, i
Good for Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in the US. With the recent mega upload fiasco and some of the other craziness, I think it's a smart move for foreigners to avoid hosting in the US.
US courts are trying to reach into other countries now. We've got way to much craziness here to trust us. The government should have known their actions will have consequences.
Re:Good for Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in the US. With the recent mega upload fiasco and some of the other craziness, I think it's a smart move for foreigners to avoid hosting in the US.
US courts are trying to reach into other countries now. We've got way to much craziness here to trust us. The government should have known their actions will have consequences.
That isn't necessarily true, it really depends on what you are planning on doing. 'Jurisdiction shopping' for hosting purposes isn't all that different, strategically, from doing it for tax laws. Different jurisdictions are useful for different things and varying degrees of terrible for others.
If you, say, actually want to comply with EU and/or member state privacy law, or just don't want the NSA doing cloud backups for you, you'd be a moron to let your data get anywhere near the US. Same deal if you want to do something that makes the MPAA sad. On the other hand, the US is a pretty decent(and attractively priced) place to have strong opinions about assorted governments, religions, and ethnic groups that would quite possibly earn you an extended stay in a cozy correctional facility at home... The important thing is identifying your requirements and doing your best to ensure that the most sympathetic jurisdictions, for those needs, are where your activities occur...
Re:Good for Australia (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in China. I'd only consider a completely local hosting solution, not because the US government fucks you harder than the Chinese government, but simply because you're going to get fucked by the local one whatever you do, so better leave it at one than be double penetrated.
a "sanity check" for everybody (Score:3)
The biggest and simplest question when deploying a "Cloud Solution" is very simple
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT RAINS??
In this case it makes sense for a company based in %Nation% to have the primary servers in %Nation% or if thats not possible in %AlliedNearbyNation%.
heck if a US (based) company wants to do "Cloud" things in and for say Australia then it stands to reason that a nonzero number of DCs should actually BE IN AUSTRALIA. (don't they have a bit of a bandwidth problem??)
Re:a "sanity check" for everybody (Score:4, Funny)
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT RAINS??
Grab your gun and bring the cat in.
No America - you're not getting our data. (Score:5, Informative)
One of the reasons we don't like hosting stuff on American servers is due to one of their laws that the FBI (and similar agencies) can obtain data with a warrant that tells the service (cloud) provider not to tell the customer us. We have our own private cloud infrastructure here in Perth and spread to Adelaide and Sydney with talks of having some in Singapore. We do not want our data on cloud infrastructure we don't manage in another country.
Re:No America - you're not getting our data. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is really true of any pair of countries. The only reason to host data and servers in the US is if it's (much) cheaper or if that data needs to be highly available to your customers in the US. Otherwise, the legal and practical implications of storing your data in a country other than your own make such a decision crazy for businesses.
Correct response (Score:2, Insightful)
Just raise an eyebrow, look the trade representative in the eye for a long, quiet moment, and then get back to work.
Re:Correct response (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the correct response is for the Australian Government to stop acting like the 51st state and to start saying NO to America on things that dont directly benefit Australia.
It does NOT benefit Australia to store data belonging to Australian Governments (Federal, State and Local) or Australian Government departments on overseas hosts (both because of the risks of what foreign governments can do with that data if its on their soil AND because of the high costs for bandwidth between Australia and the rest of the world)
It does NOT benefit Australia to be so closely tied to the USA militarily (US troops in Darwin, spending big $$$ on US military hardware like the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter etc) and in fact we should be making closer military ties with countries to our north like Indonesia.
It does NOT benefit Australia to sign "free trade" agreements that require Australia to open its trade even further whilst allowing the USA to remain essentially closed to Australian agricultural exports through US tariff and subsidy programs.
It does NOT benefit Australia to give in to the demands of the big content producing companies when they ask for stronger protection for their content (weakening of ISP safe harbor, forced disconnection of ISP customers alleged to be pirates, ability to obtain ISP user details without presenting sufficient evidence that the user they want information on was in fact violating their copyright etc)
It does NOT benefit Australia to make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies (Australian, US or otherwise) to spy on random people (Australian, US or otherwise) where there is no specific evidence to back up their claims that spying or wiretapping that person will allow the agency in question to catch or identify the bad guys.
Oh and it does NOT benefit Australia to send troops to far flung countries when there is not a threat to Australia or to the world at large. Afghanistan was a justified war initially but now its gone on for too long and we should let the democratically elected government of Afghanistan handle their own security. Iraq 1 was a justified war because Iraq did invade another country and at the time they did have powerful weapons that were a threat to other countries (SCUD missiles, chemical weapons etc) Iraq 2 was NOT a justified war as there was not enough evidence that Iraq at the time presented a threat to its neighbors or to the world at large.
Predator Drone Strikes (Score:5, Funny)
on suspected members of Men-At-Work will soon follow.
Cloud Perception (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cloud Perception (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, God, you did not just use "solution" as a verb, did you? Really?
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Victorian Privacy Commissioner (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the person responsible for safeguarding Victoria's secret?
Dear United States trade representative (Score:5, Informative)
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whoa (Score:4, Informative)
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Yes, the US trade representative is merely doing his job. Hopefully that cuts both ways - that he is informing his superiors about the guffaws that his statements are triggering.
Ultimately it might trigger some reciprocity or treaty generation that would make it less important what country was hosting the data.
Oh come on, now (Score:3)
First of all, he is supposed to point out *real* trade barriers. When Australian government provides information about the numerous problems of using USA based cloud services from Australia (connection problems, lag, ability of USA government to snoop on it, etc.), he's not obligated to complain...
That said, if it was coming from any other country, I could go "Just some government official overstepping a bit. It happens. Nobody will listen. Why is this newsworthy?" but USA has *very* strong track-record a
Shove off US (Score:3)
wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)
Right on (Score:2)
don't want your cloud data backed up in Utah!
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Walls Rise And Fall (Score:4, Insightful)
That wall will be built by the Americans themselves if it ever comes about. It is not so likely now that either Obama or Romney will end up as President.
However the United States has always had periods of voluntary and ideologically founded Isolationism. If you give them another shock to the system like 9/11 or internal forces such as the Tea Party pushes them in that direction they could very well decide to shut their doors to the greater world.
I don't think the world will be better off without the US, we might not like everythng the US does, but it has probably been more beneficial than bad. I'm not disregarding the wars, mistakes and indirect suffering, but whatever power leads the world in the future will have to make the same tough decisions. You can't have stability without the threat/use of force.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
It's a good trade representative's job to find mutually beneficial business opportunities in hopes of expanding the markets.
It is not their job to slag anyone who doesn't want to use their nation's services.
In fact, it's really, really bad business to bad-mouth your prospective customers that way, regardless of whether you work for government or industry.
Ob (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you store your beer collection in a country where it's legal to piss in it?
Re:Ob (Score:4, Insightful)
Free Trade is Great (Score:3)
Really (Score:3)
Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
(see http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/patriot-act-and-privacy-laws-take-a-bite-out-of-us-cloud-business.ars [arstechnica.com])
Re: (Score:3)
Do any of your IT people in the US have sysadmin access to the Canadian data center? Are any Canadian operators directly answerable to your company's US management or executive staff?
If so, I'm not sure simply physically having DCs in Canada or the UK is sufficient protection against attacks by the US government.
We've already seem the US wildly overstepping its bounds by "[shutting] down online-gambling site Bodog.com, and indicted its three top execs, despite their non-U.S. citizenships, residence outside [itworld.com]
Sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Australia,
I, an American Citizen and veteran of the Marine Corps where I served an an infantry machine gunner, and filling billets including intelligence analyst and company clerk, sincerely apologize for this.
Although this isn't my fault (for I was not allowed to vote while I was in the service. This is my opinion, I found it too much of a coincidence that my ballot and that of a friend from the same state arrived exactly 1 month to the day after it was supposed to be postmarked for return. Twice.), you can bet I will vote this round, and will not be voting for anyone that is currently in office, for they all allow these things to happen, which is an embarrassment to us all.
I'm E-mailing my senators and congressman now. I have other concerns to raise with them anyway, like why my state charges sales tax on private sales of vehicles (double taxation) and why they want to charge tax on the Real Market Value of said vehicle even though it was sold for 1/3 that price (taxing money not spent).
Sincerely,
Troubled American Citizen
P.S. Are you guys still open for citizenship? At times it's more prudent to abandon a sinking vessel rather than continue trying to fix what is so severely broken.
Wow, just wow. (Score:3)
The other way round (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if the US department of defense would allow its contractors to ever host their data in Australia?
physics trumps politics (Score:3)
Locality rules the universe. Networked storage and communications are subject to the same laws of physics as everything else.
New Business Model for the US Gov't (Score:4, Funny)
They should offer data restores from the NSA for a price...
* Accidentally delete an email? Just call the NSA and we'll send you a copy of it.
Re:The latency kills you - Mod anon up (Score:4, Informative)
Even if the USA had sane laws & law enforcement, the fact that your data is sitting on the other side of the planet adds a lot of latency.
The speed of light is the limiting factor, and we haven't figured out how to beat that one yet.
Further, the high cost of fat pipes in Australia strongly discourages cloud providers.
I cannot get into specifics to protect my identity but this is why you want to have at least a cache of your data in australia if you are a multi-national. It makes no sense whatsoever for Australian entities to store their data in the US.
Re: (Score:3)
Fact: The NSA has shown itself, historically, to have knowledge and technology 20-30 years ahead of that available to the rest of the human race (case in point, their suggestion to modify DES' S-boxes to strengthen it against differential cryptanalysis, an attack using math no one had even heard of until almost 30 years later).
Fact: A general purpose quantum computer makes all commonly used encryption algorithms worthless (though a number of quantum-resistant algorith
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Data retention, security, availability and backup are what we need. My ideal then is an Australian hosting company with exemplary credentials. We have that!.
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