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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?

#181

Post by kybernetyk »

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…

It was the same with the drone strike debate. The whole buzz was about the fact that the US president now could order a drone strike on US citizens.

No discussion about non US citizens. It was just assumed that drone striking them was OK. Made me really feel weird as an European.

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

#182

Post by justincormack »

atirip wrote: post #126
einhverfr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My latest startup is Efficito (a Limited Company, registered in the UK). The web site is http://www.efficito.com and our servers are all in Europe. We have built the service up with a very careful eye for security (why we are going hosted cloud first, and multi-tenant is still in the works). You have just given me what I think is a very good possibility regarding a marketing message, namely that we are not subject to…

"Suppose you do business with an American company that has servers in Australia (for the record we are registered in the UK, not the US), and they get a FISA warrant? Of course they will send the info over" There's a way out. Those server offshore must be handled by subsidiary. Then the parent company in US does not have the data and they can not also command subsidiary to handle it over.

The big US companies have made it clear that they will give out data held by subsidiaries, even if this is illegal eg under European law.

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

#184

Post by easytiger »

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…

When you enter america as a tourist you (used to) sign a document saying you wave all rights of personal freedom. Now they make you pay for it up front online every couple of years.

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

#185

Post by lsc »

einhverfr wrote: post #171
AlexeiSadeski wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my point is that what they can get without a court order is more than they can get with one.

But the return on investment is likely to be far less. If it is harder, more resources have to be spent, then they will be more selective if just because it would be prohibitive to bug every system across the world, at least at present.

>But the return on investment is likely to be far less.

I am not so sure about that. The internet... well, many of the wide-open holes have been closed... BGP hijacking isn't as trivial as it was in '08[1], mostly because filtering has been implemented in some places, but it's still something that could be done by someone of, say, my resources. It's trivial to anyone with real resources.

And there are all sorts of other possible attacks. Hell, even ignoring the (probably easy, for one of the three letter agencies) possibility of putting a backdoor in the firmware shipping on popular routers, well, most ISPs end up using ancient router firmware revisions on their routers[2]

Yeah; read over that BGP hijacking attack; it sounds way easier than setting up a collector at every ISP. (You'd still need local collectors to not add too much latency, but a single (/very/ well connected) collector could cover a reasonable region)

[1]http://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-16/dc16-presentations/de...

[2]Cisco charges an arm and a leg for firmware upgrades... they give you some of the really old stuff? but usually the choice is used $BIGNAME hardware without firmware updates, or you roll-your own quagga. (at the 10G/sec traffic level my upstreams can push, quagga/vyatta work just fine... that's what I use.)

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

#186

Post by blibble »

buro9 wrote: post #117
einhverfr wrote: post #91

I am an American and I just want to point out that my latest startup ( http://www.efficito.com ) is a Limited UK company, and my co-founder is from the Netherlands. It would certainly be to my advantage if things change. We offer cloud-based ERP, and you might be interested to know our main hosting server is currently in the Czech Republic. We are also paranoid about security (all access is encrtpted, and we are look…

I'm a UK citizen with a startup http://microco.sm that has gone to some lengths to avoid US domains, companies and laws. All of our domains are EU based, the company is UK based, and whilst we've used Linode for blog and basic site-hosting and will use Cloudflare for CDN, we are putting nothing on the server of a US company that could be a risk to privacy. All of our data we are keeping within the EU which we feel ho…

you'll be putting all your traffic through cloudflare?

if they do your SSL termination that makes all your careful US-avoidance completely redundant.

additionally, if you include some JS hosted on cloudflare, then that's susceptible to being tapped by the US intelligence agencies too.

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

#187

Post by buro9 »

blibble wrote: post #186
buro9 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a UK citizen with a startup http://microco.sm that has gone to some lengths to avoid US domains, companies and laws. All of our domains are EU based, the company is UK based, and whilst we've used Linode for blog and basic site-hosting and will use Cloudflare for CDN, we are putting nothing on the server of a US company that could be a risk to privacy. All of our data we are keeping within the EU which we feel ho…

you'll be putting all your traffic through cloudflare? if they do your SSL termination that makes all your careful US-avoidance completely redundant. additionally, if you include some JS hosted on cloudflare, then that's susceptible to being tapped by the US intelligence agencies too.

No, I'll be putting some of my traffic through Cloudflare as we use several domain names, and each for a specific purpose.

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

#188

Post by buro9 »

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…

The US legal system is only accessible by citizens of the USA.

It should be of no surprise then, that citizens of other countries have no ability to protect themselves from over-reaching laws and actions by the US government.

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

#189

Post by honzzz »

dsowers wrote: post #75
zainny wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Australian, that's what I found most interesting as well about all the commentary going on. From the perspective of the NSA it seems my data is fair game under any and all circumstances. Well fuck that. Google, Amazon, et al. - I'm out

Good luck. I don't see other countries innovating at even half the rate of the U.S. with tech stuff. Leaving the umbrella will be like turning out the lights. It gets boring and cold in the dark after a while.

That might change... and not only for reasons related to privacy.

I live in EU and I remember that about two or three years ago every geek's wet dream was to get to Silicon Valley and build a startup. But that seems to be changing. I don't have any research to back it up - it's just some anecdotal evidence but many people now seem to consider alternatives like London or Chile... mostly because they are afraid of software patents and want to stay out of US jurisdiction.

These things are difficult to asses but there is a tipping point somewhere - once critical mass is achieved innovation can quickly move somewhere else. Fear of American government can help make it happen and I am sure that competitors are going to love playing that card.

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

#190

Post by blibble »

buro9 wrote: post #187
blibble wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you'll be putting all your traffic through cloudflare? if they do your SSL termination that makes all your careful US-avoidance completely redundant. additionally, if you include some JS hosted on cloudflare, then that's susceptible to being tapped by the US intelligence agencies too.

No, I'll be putting some of my traffic through Cloudflare as we use several domain names, and each for a specific purpose.

also if they want to intercept a few of your high profile users, the fact you're using SSL really isn't going to stop them, when they can issue valid certs for your domain without asking you.

short of SSL pinning being widely deployed: you're powerless to stop them, and while it's an admirable goal, it's ultimately disingenuous to suggest that you can safeguard your user's privacy.

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