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A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

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Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#61

Post by alan_cx »

317070 wrote: post #50
Tactic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has this ability with near all other relationships you have. So much so that they have codified the few that it doesn't apply to. We put lawyers, doctors, clergy and spouses in a special category but others can be required to divulge any information they have on you with the appropriate order. (What's appropriate is another discussion) Ultimately, realize that any dealing you have is open to the govern…

As a European citizen, I have a different view on this issue. While I do trust Google/Microsoft with some of my data, and I kind of trust my own government with my data, I don't trust the U.S. government for one bit, especially its judicial system. Luckily, I don't normally need to account for that, and I'd rather keep it like that. But this is like somebody at the other end of the planet changing the small letters o…

I'm in the UK, no idea where you are. I don't trust my government one bit with my data, or any one elses. The US so called justice system literally scares the hell out of me. From a UK perspective, its terrifying. Unfortunately for UK subjects, the UK government willingly hands our data over to the US government, and equally willingly allows us to be extradited on little more than a request. Being a European Citizen offers us in the UK very little protection from the US.

As others have said, I have very little problem with the likes of google and MS having a lot of data on me, as long as they use it fairly and reasonably, and Im kept informed. Of course we do have the problem of government access to that data.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#62

Post by wvenable »

colechristensen wrote: post #60
Tactic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has this ability with near all other relationships you have. So much so that they have codified the few that it doesn't apply to. We put lawyers, doctors, clergy and spouses in a special category but others can be required to divulge any information they have on you with the appropriate order. (What's appropriate is another discussion) Ultimately, realize that any dealing you have is open to the govern…

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The US Government does _not_ have the legal authority to arbitrarily collect or seize…

The Fourth Amendment seems to be pretty merky when it comes to data about you belonging to and stored with other entities.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#63

Post by throwaway7767 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #49
throwaway7767 wrote: post #33

Microsoft has shown that they are quite willing to access induviduals private data if they have a financial stake in it [0]. Yes, they eventually backtracked under public pressure (after trying very hard to justify how it's totally okay because they were going to pay a lawyer to rubber-stamp things in the future), but it's rather hard to listen to their general council talking about how they value privacy on principl…

Is there any evidence that any companies were willingly going along with PRISM? Seems like they were under gag orders and potential fines (Yahoo said $250K a day). Not sure what choice they had. Though MS accessing user's data via Hotmail for internal review really does scuttle their credibility.

> Is there any evidence that any companies were willingly going along with PRISM? Seems like they were under gag orders and potential fines (Yahoo said $250K a day). Not sure what choice they had.

I'm not aware of any evidence of their intent, no, just that they assisted in collection. I believe Glenn Greenwald has stated that they were a willing and proactive participant, but that that information came from NSA internal forums and not official documentation so it would not be released.

I don't think it really matters though. Whether they were willing or not, the end result is the same. If you don't trust the USG, you cannot trust US corporations (yes, of course this applies not just to the US but others as well; it's just that we currently have more information about the fiveeyes programs, and the US is a big player geopolitically so they have interests to protect in a lot of areas).

On an more personal level, I would say that even if they collaborated with this under legal threats, they are still morally responsible for their decisions to support the surveillance state. I cannot accept that we give people or companies a clean slate for evil just because they had financial interests to protect. Everyone has financial interests to protect, and it's usually more convenient to ignore evil than to put oneself at risk.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#65

Post by gknoy »

Intermernet wrote: post #30
protomyth wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tarsnap (a service that acts like your description) is quite nice, but the problem of "customer lost the keys" is a very real one. I love the idea, but someone really needs to come up with some decent key management (and offline backup and key migration) to make this consumer friendly.

It's not really something that can be made "consumer friendly" as far as I can tell (But I'd love to be proven wrong!). How do you securely store the key to your securely stored data? Admittedly, there are some recommendations on the Tarsnap site ( http://www.tarsnap.com/gettingstarted.html ): "5. Keep your key file safe Store your /root/tarsnap.key somewhere safe. If you lose tarsnap.key, you will not be able to acc…

The above is exactly correct, though: Write it down, put it in a safety deposit box (or two if you're paranoid about losing it?). Note that fireproof safes normally won't protect digital media (temperature) but paper survives well (I hear).

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#66

Post by walterbell »

The pending TISA trade treaty may limit data sovereignty, http://www.zdnet.com/article/wikileaks-leak-shows-data-sover...

"50 countries including Australia and the US may be signing away rights to ensure sensitive customer data remains in its country of origin ... the draft document reveals that the United States and the European Union are pushing to prevent signatory countries from preventing the transfer of data across nation borders."

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#67

Post by ihsw »

saraha wrote: post #9
amgine wrote: post #3

It's great this article about Microsoft fighting for our privacy came put in the midst of the upset over Windows 10 phoning home.

Microsoft aren't fighting for your rights here. They are fighting for market share. Not turning your data over to the FBI is now a product feature.

I can't help but disagree -- they are caught between a rock and a hard place. Following the demands of one Federal government (Brazil) will result in them violating the laws of another (US).

They are fighting for a unified legal regime that spans across all international boundaries.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#68

Post by mjevans »

gioele wrote: post #37
NoGravitas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you, but there's one problem with the physical key analogy. The security of physical keys is weak enough that there's always a fallback if you lose all the copies of your key: you pay a locksmith to come pick the lock and rekey it. You can't do this with digital keys because a digital key that is weak enough for this strategy to be usable is also too weak to protect you from the main class of a…

> there's always a fallback if you lose all the copies of your key: you pay a locksmith to come pick the lock and rekey it. In the digital world you have Shamir's Secret Sharing. Generate a non-encrypting, non-signing, decode-only key and give a N-th of if to N escrow services. If you lose your key you contact M of those entities and recover the data. Plenty of tricks have been created in the last two decades to addr…

Who says you need escrow services for that?

Store your N'th fragments with /friends and family/ that you know well. You might also be able to get in on distributed backups together.

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#69

Post by guelo »

wvenable wrote: post #62
colechristensen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The US Government does _not_ have the legal authority to arbitrarily collect or seize…

The Fourth Amendment seems to be pretty merky when it comes to data about you belonging to and stored with other entities.

The "3rd party doctrine" is a bullshit interpretation and it needs to die. When I go through the trouble of coming up with a long complicated password and setup two factor authentication it's pretty obvious that I have "an expectation of privacy". Maybe what the tech companies need to do is have a checkmark on sign up that says "I expect my data to be private".

Re: A Case That Has Microsoft, Apple and Amazon Agreeing

#70

Post by CosmicHorrorSam »

soylentcola wrote: post #31

"There’s irony in any tech company confronting the government on privacy matters, considering how much heat many take for mining their own customer information and using it for advertising and other profitable purposes." See, I don't find this very ironic. In fact, my only real issue with data mining and analysis by these sorts of companies is the way governments can demand this info without my approval. If Microsoft…

Hot dang, that last line is insightful.

Some people will argue that whenever you let someone have data about yourself, you're implicitly giving access to practically everyone by virtue of often imperfect security.

I believe that those people are full of shit.

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