Why is this valuable?
Government contracts
AWS European Sovereign Cloud
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it breaks the law in the EU, then the European employees staffing the data center refuse, because they don't want to go to jail or pay fines. That's the entire point of setting it up like this. Think of it like fast-food franchises. They have to sell the same food and use the same branding and charge the same prices. But if McDonald's tells you to start selling cocaine on the side, you tell them nope, that's not i…
What if the software is developed and potentially backdoored in the US and deployed by the EU team in the sovereign region? Or did they rewrite the entire AWS stack?
I don't think there are any protections against that. On the other hand, you'd have to ask yourself how realistic it is that the US is forcing Amazon to secretly backdoor its own software for US spying abroad? I can't give an answer on that one, you'll have to form your own opinion.
I imagine that if a back door were ever discovered, AWS's reputation would tank so hard that a lot of companies would probably never do business with it again.
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#13If push comes to shove, these services can and will be weaponized against EU interests. They are bugged and backdoored to the brim. If we see a risk in chinese-made electrical buses which can potentially be remotely shut down by an integrated sim card, then using AWS should be a no go in the current political climate - no matter how much lipstick they put on that pig.
Last week, after receiving a fine in Italy, the Cloudflare CEO demonstrated that US tech leadership are extremely emotionally volatile and can lash out in all directions, threatening unrelated parties with shutdown of service. This is in line with Peter "anti christ" Thiel and Elon "nazi salute" Musk going off the rails. Maybe it is a drug-induced psychosis from their annual gathering in the desert where US tech workers consume illegal substances, I don't know.
What if someone scratches Bezos' yacht by accident and then he threatens to shut down the DC? Or he might get upset about a CO2 surcharge when refueling his private jet? Can we really take these risks?
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#14Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff... All of these isolation sovereignty iniatives are window dressing to the bigger problem that the EU and other countries are massively dependent on proprietaey US-centric software stacks.
Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff...
Not as much as you might think. The most important component -- Nitro -- basically runs out of Germany.
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if the software is developed and potentially backdoored in the US and deployed by the EU team in the sovereign region? Or did they rewrite the entire AWS stack?
I don't think there are any protections against that. On the other hand, you'd have to ask yourself how realistic it is that the US is forcing Amazon to secretly backdoor its own software for US spying abroad? I can't give an answer on that one, you'll have to form your own opinion. I imagine that if a back door were ever discovered, AWS's reputation would tank so hard that a lot of companies would probably never do…
> how realistic it is that the US is forcing Amazon to secretly backdoor its own software for US spying abroad?
probably 100%?
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#16If I'm not mistaken the US (e.g. intelligence agencies) can still require them to provide client data and respect US sanctions?
AWS should be ditched altogether and something Europe based chosen even if it requires investment.
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#17Microsoft admitted that it 'cannot guarantee' data sovereignty [0] "on June 18 before a [French] Senate inquiry into public procurement and the role it plays in European digital sovereignty" as the CLOUD Act "gives the US government authority to obtain digital data held by US-based tech corporations irrespective of whether that data is stored on servers at home or on foreign soil."
It'd be great if they could clarify in their FAQ [1] if and how the CLOUD Act affects them.
[0] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/microsoft_admits_it_c...
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#18Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff... All of these isolation sovereignty iniatives are window dressing to the bigger problem that the EU and other countries are massively dependent on proprietaey US-centric software stacks.
> Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff...
Id argue that very few software components are written (let alone maintained) by US staff. This is basically another major player (there are other sovereign clouds) reading the writing on the wall and doing what is necessary to avoid losing business or being irradiated from the market.
CloudFlare CEO, take notice. Look how the big boys do business and maybe learn a thing or two.
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#19How effective would this setup be if the parent company in the US is ordered to order the EU subsidiary to do something not in the interests of the EU?
There was a Microsoft email server legal case for Ireland that didn't go well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_Stat...
Yeh I was curious how it was different - I thought MS did a similar thing of getting T-mobile to operate it's EU cloud.
Re: AWS European Sovereign Cloud
#20> The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is the only fully-featured, independently operated sovereign cloud, backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances and legal protections. independently OPERATED, not independently owned therefore: still under the jurisdiction of the US regime
Also "legal protections" provided by the US regime, for what that exactly entails anymore I'm not sure, probably depends on the situation.