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Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

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Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#31

Post by ritchiea »

One biggie that the author left out of the piece:

The US Gov continues to insist that they are not monitoring the data of US citizens because that would be unconstitutional without warrants. But that's a tacit admission that they are openly monitoring the data of non-US citizens. I think this is one of the most important revelations of this leak, the US Gov has made it clear that if you are a non US citizen using a web service based in the US your data is definitely under observation.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#32

Post by parennoob »

I'm not sure how common this is on this site, but I happen to be an HN reader the vast majority of whose friends in the US and across the world don't know or follow technology/security stuff.

Out of my 600-odd 'friends' on Facebook, one (1) is posting stuff about the NSA allegations. The other 599, are posting pictures of cats, music videos, snaps from vacation, reflections about life, et cetera. I myself am extremely reticent about posting on Facebook due to the recent revelations.

As a result, I am afraid Edward Snowdon's fears might come to pass, atleast in the short run. Not enough people care. They crave the short-term dopamine bursts that result from people liking their posts, or pictures, or videos. Getting them to set that aside and care about the fact that the Government might potentially have access to it all is a very, very hard task.

In order to do this, you have to get people to switch en masse to new, secure social protocols. In short, you have to build a Facebook alternative, an client-side encrypted webmail service, or a document sharing site that JustWorks, is secure, and doesn't require any terminal commands to access / run. Otherwise the majority of the population is going to use products from Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. You can use your encrypted webmail and identi.ca, but very few people outside the "tech-aware" world will communicate with you.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#33

Post by decasteve »

I'm Canadian. I'll be locking down my communications as best I can: email (GPG), instant messaging, chat, etc. I'd like to see my American neighbours do the same and hold their politicians feet the fire over this.

I feel like I should boycott the US companies on the list, at least to some degree. I have made the switch to DuckDuckGo and Mozilla. A Blackberry, as opposed to Android, will be my next smartphone. As a developer I'll be dropping my iOS support in the coming weeks. I haven't used a Microsoft product, including Skype, in a long time (exclusively Linux). I will likely phase out Google Drive and Gmail as well.

Not sure how many of my compatriots will follow suit or if that will have an impact financially.

There are lots of recommendations out there now to lock-down your browser, e.g. adblock/https/etc, if you haven't already. If this becomes mainstream then advertisers like Google may take a hit.

I'll be emailing my member of parliament (MP) to make sure we keep tabs on this in Canada, and keep our privacy laws intact.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#34

Post by shirro »

I think most people with some technical savvy have already concluded that everything on the Internet is potentially subject to surveillance, both government and corporate. You can mitigate the impact on your privacy to some extent by going offline or using crypto but not totally. People need to choose what to share, when and with whom. The people who are loudly shouting on social media about the evils of government interception are still shouting on social media where everything they have ever said or done is able to be mined and analysed. Nothing really has changed except perhaps the perceptions of the naive.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#36

Post by skylan_q »

raganwald wrote: post #9

It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not? The point of this pst is that foreign business will be affected, AFAICT, Europeans have always held the Internet to a stricter standard than Americans and have passed stricter laws around everything from what data can be retained to the behaviour of tracking cookies. If…

It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not?"

There is a fear of having guns taken, but there is an even greater fear of using them against the regime.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#37

Post by unimpressive »

rayiner wrote: post #28
coopdog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about privacy for my personal (not corporate) information from Google. The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. I do care about that an organisation with the power to legally kill or imprison me without trial, with the world's strongest military and a penchant for punishing anyone who embarasses them has all of my data, including who I associate with, what I say and whereever…

> The worst they can do is disconnect me, and I can always leave them. No, the worst thing that Google,[1] can do is share that information with credit card companies, HR departments, health insurance companies, etc, who do have the power to ruin your life and are much more likely to do it than the government. What happens when the advertising money hits the wall and can't support revenue growth sufficient to keep th…

>I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless.

Yes. The only reason the NSA/etc/all has this data is that people (probably a lot like you, dear reader) built these popular systems that make their money from tracking users. Worse still, they will always beat out a paid service because of friction and network effects.

We didn't just stand by and watch the creation of this situation, we actively participated.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#38

Post by tippytop »

raganwald wrote: post #9

It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not? The point of this pst is that foreign business will be affected, AFAICT, Europeans have always held the Internet to a stricter standard than Americans and have passed stricter laws around everything from what data can be retained to the behaviour of tracking cookies. If…

I think it will change things; I'm an American. Having your customers trust is important for business---now data stored offshore has just become a feature.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#39

Post by conanbatt »

raganwald wrote: post #9

It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not? The point of this pst is that foreign business will be affected, AFAICT, Europeans have always held the Internet to a stricter standard than Americans and have passed stricter laws around everything from what data can be retained to the behaviour of tracking cookies. If…

I dont think its the kind of thing that affects things commercially in a visible or predictable way. One of my first impression is that its humbling. Web companies are the ones that brag the msot about "building a better world" and this time there was collaboration to make it worse. I think the best or biggest change that could happen is better Whistleblower laws and protection (or high level of exposure to produce more).

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#40

Post by jval »

This is a huge deal. I live in Australia and I have been running businesses on the cloud for the last 3 years or so. I have rarely heard the issue of the PATRIOT Act raised and in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted.

Those days are most certainly over. This stuff will affect companies like AWS and Rackspace the most, given that they are competing for contracts with companies who are seriously concerned about who can get at their data. I imagine nobody will flaunt the laws in Australia regarding international data transfers in future, and that countries where no such laws exist will enact some very quickly.

Any cloud based software company in the US which holds large amounts of data that could in any way be deemed to be sensitive is going to have a much harder time pitching to clients overseas who will increasingly opt for a decent local alternative over a foreign one should the option exist. The only thing that American companies can hope for otherwise is that there is no foreign alternative.

The world is not going to come to an end but for a lot of people, their jobs are about to get much harder and the government should be worried about this.

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