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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?

#161

Post by foxylad »

"destroy" is hyperbole, but it's certainly going to have a chilling effect. We can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer - our utopian global human internet is actually just a US government controlled plaything.

My company provides a service to the government sector in Australia, hosted on Google's Appengine. We've been negotiating a blanket deal with a government department, and I can see that we're going to have to answer some very hard questions about the security of their data after this. Winning this deal would make a ten-fold increase in hosting costs irrelevant, and I wouldn't be surprised if they even offered to pay us more to host in Australia just for their peace of mind.

Most of us learn as kids how asymmetrical trust is, and how once you're caught lying no-one believes your apologies or promises to mend your ways. Before PRISM, it was only the cynics muttering about how the US Government saw everything we did. Post PRISM, most non-US companies (and probably many US companies too) will be looking for neutral alternatives to US services.

And Richard Stallman... proved right yet again!

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

glesica wrote: post #122
zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

I can't speak for others, but as far as I am concerned, every person on earth has the exact same rights. I see no difference between an American and someone from another country. This informs my stance on all of US foreign policy. To me, spying on an innocent Iraqi or Chinese citizen is just as morally reprehensible as spying on an innocent American citizen. That being said, not all people feel as I do, and you are r…

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by konstruktor »

While consumers may be too lazy to care, cloud providers will lose a lot of business. You can bet that every trade magazine outside the US will have articles discussing if it is even legal to store data with US providers given the particular country's regulation and the information we have.

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

#164

Post by grey-area »

siculars wrote: post #118
zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

According to the whistleblower, they don't in any meaningful sense. They collect all the data they can, and then currently only use bits of it, when they feel that is justified. His point about checking the US president's email in the video was that all they need is one email from a foreigner in order to tie anyone in the US to an investigation, and look through all their records.

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

#165

Post by venomsnake »

DannyBee wrote: post #127
glesica wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for others, but as far as I am concerned, every person on earth has the exact same rights. I see no difference between an American and someone from another country. This informs my stance on all of US foreign policy. To me, spying on an innocent Iraqi or Chinese citizen is just as morally reprehensible as spying on an innocent American citizen. That being said, not all people feel as I do, and you are r…

At least in most countries, this is just not the way it works, legally. Every country has different rights for citizens and non-citizens. For example, the US has held the 4th amendment does not apply to non-citizens who are not "part of the national community" (IE if a bunch of canadians came down and fished every weekend, you could search them however without violating the 4th amendment. If they lived here illegally…

Foreigners don't want equal rights. Just equal protections from the government.

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

#166

Post by 1morepassword »

The damage was already done well before that. Individuals may not care that much (so Facebook is relatively safe), but businesses and governments have already been well aware that storing their data in US-run services is a bad idea, and in many ways not even legal because of existing privacy and security related regulations.

If you for instance store sensitive medical data, you can't do that somewhere where the US government may get access to it whenever they want (warrant or not btw, unless that warrant is server to you and not your service American provider).

Many of us are looking at ways of backing out or staying out of US services for the potential legal complications alone. This may accelerate things, but to most it was already clear: if you have any kind of liability concerning the data you store and process, you can't use American online services.

The question "does your product use American services?" will be asked with increasing frequency. Also, having "no" as an answer is a good selling point in many markets.

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

#167

Post by gaius »

einhverfr wrote: post #143
glesica wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for others, but as far as I am concerned, every person on earth has the exact same rights. I see no difference between an American and someone from another country. This informs my stance on all of US foreign policy. To me, spying on an innocent Iraqi or Chinese citizen is just as morally reprehensible as spying on an innocent American citizen. That being said, not all people feel as I do, and you are r…

I think a better way to look at it is that rights are cultural, but that if we are serious about living in a decent and respectful world we should in our actions extend to others the rights we want to have ourselves. Does free speech extend to advocating going out and killing all African Americans at a white supremacist rally? In the US it does, but only because of our bad experiences during the Red Scares. In Canada…

we should in our actions extend to others the rights we want to have ourselves

That belief is cultural too - it just so happens that almost every culture has independently arrived at it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule is a fascinating read.

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

#168

Post by kaichanvong »

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

Looking at some of the bigger selling newspapers in the UK, I don't think people get it or the writers believe people wouldn't get it. On the whole most people in the UK who are not technical appear to know pretty much nothing about it and do not understand why it might be bad for them.

The whole, "I have nothing to fear" point of view. It's the bigger picture they need to think about :(

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

#169

Post by 1morepassword »

konstruktor wrote: post #163

While consumers may be too lazy to care, cloud providers will lose a lot of business. You can bet that every trade magazine outside the US will have articles discussing if it is even legal to store data with US providers given the particular country's regulation and the information we have.

That's already been a common discussion for many years. The business world outside the US is very much aware of the problem.

What we're likely to see now is article discussing how to get out of the US cloud, because it has now shifted from a potential legal issue to a commercial selling point.

Even clients with "nothing to hide" will start asking questions about where the data is stored. Not so much because they're worried about the US looking at their data, but because they want to know how well we as their service provider take care of their data.

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

#170

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

> "American companies have overwhelmingly dominated it. They have done so with astonishing innovation and technical achievement. Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Skype..."

Skype was in no sense an American company until it was sold, first to eBay and then to MS

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