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Dear USA, my data has left your building

cpbotha.net

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Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#111

Post by bborud »

regal wrote: post #72
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Nitpickers aside (yes, what they had they may still have or at least in digest form) this is a single instance of a tidal wave of people doing this. EU datacenters are doing quite well because of the NSA revelations. The economic impact of this could very well counteract any net plus the US had while they were able to spy at will. Likely it's not going to be the same parties that will end up footing the bill. The pra…

Much as I'd like to see some kind of "tidal wave of people doing this", purely in the interests of sending a message to somebody somewhere that data sniffing = not cool, I don't personally know anyone who's taken the time or energy to move all his data off of bugged U.S. servers onto bugged European or Asian ones or attempted to host it himself in less-efficient email clients, etc., nor plans to, nor do I hear very m…

I don't think the worst consequences are in people moving their data off services now -- the real impact is how this affects long term IT strategy. Even small changes to the slope of the adoption curve now will result in massive accumulated losses over time.

A lot of companies with a lot of data are asking themselves whether or not to put that data in the cloud. Storing data in the US right now is a bit like suggesting you store your confidential files in 1980s Soviet union -- only, they would probably have been a lot safer in the 1980s Soviet union.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#112

Post by koide »

criley2 wrote: post #97
bjourne wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about pragmatism than hypocracy. Everyone in Europe has a lot to win on painting the US as the bad guys and themselves as innocent. Major European tech firms are going to play this story very hard to gain fat government contracts rather than their American competitors. That's what might change things, when profits are being hurt politicians are very quick to act.

Short sighted pragmatism. As Europeans turn against Americans (or more precisely, non-Anglos turn against the Anglosphere/Five Eyes), the West begins to fracture precisely as the East begins to rise again with force. It's going to be an interesting decade.

The west fractured or not, the east is going to rise. Turning a blind eye to this concrete opportunity makes no difference to that end result, but does affect the quarter's earnings.

Also, these quarrels will hardly damage international relations in any significant manner as to prevent the west unite in whatever manner they see fit to face the east.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#113

Post by kordless »

stekoz wrote: post #59
dcc1 wrote: post #5

Over the last month I have cancelled all our servers in US, setting up a new one this morning in Amsterdam One thing I am worried about is potential liability of having someone sueing us under data protection laws here in Ireland, claiming their data was inspected by US and we couldnt protect their privacy Here in Europe we get to have data protection commisioners and strong laws on the subject unlike across the pond…

One thing I don't entirely understand is whether having an EU-based server provided by an US company (Rackspace, AWS, Digital Ocean, you name it) makes any difference at all.

Rackspace wrote a blog post about this: http://www.rackspace.com/blog/government-surveillance-and-yo.... They say it depends on jurisdiction and location of data, not whether the holding company is in the US or not.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#114

Post by superuser2 »

GCHQ is not exactly any rosier than the NSA. I don't know why OP imagines that WebFaction (UK company) is immune to spying in a way that Google isn't.

I'm afraid this will be characteristic of the anticipated mass exodus. People will move away from US services because it makes them feel good, but their destinations are going to be either Five Eyes territory or countries that don't even feel a need to hide their surveillance apparatus.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#115

Post by agentultra »

regal wrote: post #72
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Nitpickers aside (yes, what they had they may still have or at least in digest form) this is a single instance of a tidal wave of people doing this. EU datacenters are doing quite well because of the NSA revelations. The economic impact of this could very well counteract any net plus the US had while they were able to spy at will. Likely it's not going to be the same parties that will end up footing the bill. The pra…

Much as I'd like to see some kind of "tidal wave of people doing this", purely in the interests of sending a message to somebody somewhere that data sniffing = not cool, I don't personally know anyone who's taken the time or energy to move all his data off of bugged U.S. servers onto bugged European or Asian ones or attempted to host it himself in less-efficient email clients, etc., nor plans to, nor do I hear very m…

It's scary that they don't care but not surprising. We live in a world where the majority of people with privilege are comfortable with the fact that racial profiling still pervades the criminal justice system. In fact, such a statement will be viewed as controversial and debate will be diluted by meaningless argument about whether racial profiling exists or whether the use of the term, "privilege," is even fair. Privacy, I believe, faces the same conundrum: it's a problem but the consequences of it are so divorced from the individual that most people won't even think about it.

The rub for me is not that some NSA goon could snoop on where my gaming group is meeting up next week. It's that they could use the scale of their surveillance powers to profile and target groups of individuals in much finer strokes. They don't need to mobilize a state police force to stop random persons and check their papers anymore. It's much more quiet now and less noticeable. We can let our imaginations run rampant about what they could do with this information but I think there's evidence of what they do use it for already and the reality is often much more frightening because it seems so benign.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#116

Post by gcv »

All well and good — I suspect that OpenPGP is one of the few reliable tools out there for file and email security — but BitTorrent Sync is closed-source. We have no way of knowing that it doesn't automatically provide copies of all data to interested third parties. Better put those cat pictures in TrueCrypt (another tool which probably works) volumes before syncing them out. (Assuming your hardware doesn't compromise the encryption.)

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#117

Post by pinaceae »

7bn people on earth, but the NSA has a direct interest in cpbotha hence his actions make total sense.

because if the US intelligence services took interest in him, moving his data to other servers would totally stop them. i can see the agents shaking their fists at the sky, helplessly staring at the server just beyond their reach.

so fulfilling to finally act out those ultimate nerd fantasies. just as awesome as the PGP mail users in college back in the days. sending plain text mails with pgp signatures, because somenone else could forge your identity - riiiiight.

i wonder if there is a direct correlation between this mindset and stuff mounted on the belts of said users. giant keyrings, led flashlights, multitools, etc - always prepared for the movie in your head.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#118

Post by fauigerzigerk »

mseebach wrote: post #81
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Nitpickers aside (yes, what they had they may still have or at least in digest form) this is a single instance of a tidal wave of people doing this. EU datacenters are doing quite well because of the NSA revelations. The economic impact of this could very well counteract any net plus the US had while they were able to spy at will. Likely it's not going to be the same parties that will end up footing the bill. The pra…

European chest-beating in the wake of the NSA revelations is fairly hypocritical. The difference between the US and the EU is that in the US, the snooping was icky, secret and very possibly illegal. In the EU, it's done out in the open, required by law: According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months stipulating a maximum time period. Under the direc…

The data retention directive is undoubtedly problematic, but if it is implemented according to law, it means that telcos will hand over metadata on individual accounts at the request of a court. There are no secret courts, no gag orders and no dragnet mining of content as opposed to metadata.

But of course that says nothing about what European police organizations are up to ... secretly. I'm thinking of things like the "Bundestrojaner".

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#120

Post by devx »

I strongly suggest watching Jakob Appelbaum's speech at the NSA hearing in the European Parliament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu6accTBjfs&feature=youtu.be...

Here's a question he asks to people who think that because they're Americans they're "more protected" against NSA spying than foreigners:

Who would be me more afraid to call someone like Appelbaum or Julian Assange? Someone from US, or a foreigner?

I think everyone knows the answer to that question, and you also have your answer for how protected Americans really are against this total surveillance.

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