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European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

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Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#11

Post by stevoski »

sentenza wrote: post #3

As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic. Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening t…

I'm a New Zealander living in Spain. My circle of acquaintances here seem to be disappointed, frustrated, but not surprised about the recent Prism revelations.

I find myself yearning for a non-USA based alternative to Gmail, Facebook, et al, yet am resigned that the alternatives are currently so inferior that I'll stick with the compromised options.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#12

Post by colin_jack »

danmaz74 wrote: post #6
sentenza wrote: post #3

As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic. Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening t…

It will be interesting to see the real effects though. How long will people remember about this? How much will it affect their actual choices? The US "brand" overcame so many scandals, I'm not sure this one will be different.

In terms of the public it will probably be forgotten quickly, politicians probably wont be so forgiving.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#13

Post by res0nat0r »

mbesto wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally m…

I used to work for AWS and currently work for another large cloud computing company, and the words NSA and PRISM haven't been mentioned once in any of our companywide meetings this week.

I think the HN echo chamber is hyping this up more than the rest of the real corporate world. Large companies who want to move to the cloud already know the risks/rewards of hosting their data via offsite 3rd party companies. They aren't worried about some threat that the NSA is sucking up all their data, they are concerned about people breaking into their instances and stealing their customer data.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#14

Post by 1morepassword »

sentenza wrote: post #3

As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic. Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening t…

Dutch press reported very well... on Merkel's reaction.

Our own prime minister however pretends nothing is wrong, despite subsequent leaking from his own intelligence service.

And with a wonderful sense of irony he showed up few hours ago next door to our offices at a Google event focused on, wait for it: convincing the government to make better use of the internet...

But seriously, it is mainstream news here. Looking at the biggest prime time news show as I type this, major item.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#15

Post by jsonne »

MisterWebz wrote: post #10
mbesto wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally m…

It seems the EU has better privacy laws, but it would be foolish to think that there isn't any surveillance and spying being done here.

They don't in the slightest. Check out Sweden's FRA laws. They're even more invasive than PRISM.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#17

Post by anon1385 »

tripa wrote: post #16
jsonne wrote: post #7

Ironic as one of their member states (Sweden) has a potentially even more wide reaching program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law

AFAIK, Sweden doesn't host gmail or facebook servers.

Facebook does have servers in Sweden: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/facebook_swedish_dat...

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#18

Post by freehunter »

res0nat0r wrote: post #13
mbesto wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally m…

I used to work for AWS and currently work for another large cloud computing company, and the words NSA and PRISM haven't been mentioned once in any of our companywide meetings this week. I think the HN echo chamber is hyping this up more than the rest of the real corporate world. Large companies who want to move to the cloud already know the risks/rewards of hosting their data via offsite 3rd party companies. They ar…

I work in information security for a large international corporation, and I can add another anecdote to back up yours. We've discussed the news informally as a curiosity, but there's no business drive to really do anything about it. We're not trying to hide our business operations from the government, we're trying to hide them from our competitors. You're absolutely correct that businesses care about security from civilians more than security from governments.

With that, the push won't happen unless our customers start demanding our cloud-based solutions are free from government snooping. In my employer's industry, I doubt that would happen. However, we have gained compliance with many industry standards that we don't necessarily need to be complaint with just because our customers demanded it. It's not the big businesses that will be demanding a change, it's the customers of those businesses. If enough customers care, things will change. If the customers don't care, then nothing will be done.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#19

Post by killerpopiller »

mbesto wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally m…

..it already is. E.g. german companies with a data protection comissioners/officers usually don't store data outside EU coutries, since the data protection level is considered to be to low.

§4b Abs.2 S.2 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz prohibits conveyance of personal data outside EU borders if the interest of persons concerned outweighs it (mostly it does).

This PRISM-surveillance substantiates those concerns.

Re: European Parliament Up In Arms Over PRISM

#20

Post by nullc »

Mordor wrote: post #2

Ultimately the only language the US government understands is the massive fines and restrictions about to be levied against its corporations. Should Apple be operating in Europe for example? Would it be possible to levy a fine for each iPhone sold? Perhaps the tax authorities could take a different view on their profits...

Perhaps not a good mix with all those offshore-for-tax-reasons assets!
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