111–120 of 120 posts
Here's the 64k dollar question. If Snowden hadn't dropped the dime on the douchebaggery going on not just at NSA, but also w.r.t. the complicity/cooperation by all the biggies(Google, FB, MS, etc), would MS be doing this? I assert that the answer is clearly a big No....anyone else agree with me??
> Despite a federal court order directing Microsoft to turn overseas-held email data to federal authorities, the software giant said Friday it will continue to withhold that information as it waits for the case to wind through the appeals process. The judge has now ordered both Microsoft and federal prosecutors to advise her how to proceed by next Friday, September 5. > Let there be no doubt that Microsoft's actions…
It is illegal, but it also means you'd have no foreign customers. They would lose tons of contracts immediately. It would completely end the enterprise cloud revolution that is occurring.
Its fairly common when there are orders for data or code to be turned over for companies to play cat and mouse with access issues.
For example, when being forced to turn over code printing the code out in a tiny illegible font and putting the reams of paper on a truck and delivering it that way. (Its been done many times)
Even if MS prevails this is not good for the internet. If big companies resort to storing data overseas this will be toxic for US based cloud services.
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> because they bear the brunt of our defensive needs (something that is not going change anytime soon) That may change more swiftly than you imagine. It seems like the US is already far more reluctant than ten years ago to go rushing in.
I don't think the US ever "rushed in" to attack Russian forces; even in the heated 1960s, people thought long and hard before pushing those nuclear buttons. There are many ways to provide military aid, not all of them involving your own troops; and with the rise of a strongly anti-Russian EU Commission, I bet all these options will be considered sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, it took years for NATO…
Why not? Surely Europe doesn't want to set a precedent that Russia can foment and fund an "opposition", claim the existence of such an opposition means that the territory it is in should be annexed, and then annex it. I would have expected that Germany of all countries would recognize these tactics for exactly what they are: almost a direct replay of Hitler's pre-WWII tactics. It should be all the more galling because the proximal cause was that Ukraine was too "pro-EU". Yet the EU doesn't lift a finger. AFAICT, Obama doesn't do much because he is more concerned about ISIS, and sees Ukraine as a European problem.
So I guess the US government is not logging everything yet... so this is 2 good news.
"The US government" is not a monolithic entity. Certain departments (e.g. NSA) might "log everything" already, they just don't (or can't) share it openly with other departments yet -- if anything, because revealing such capability is damaging in itself.
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
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> The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. Agreed. Hopefully this encourages more people to stand up to unreasonable violations of privacy from our government. > And for perhaps the first time ever: bravo Microsoft! I don't even care if you did if for the PR, it's still a brave stand. The question of whether a company is following principles or motivated by profit/PR is so strange to me. The question is nonsense and the…
Seriously, I can't even count the amount of times I read about a company doing something good/bad/neutral in a day and reading comments about said action that boil down to "they only did it for money". Who fucking cares what their motivations are, a business is an entity designed to make money and they are made up of multiple different people with different morals and convictions. I wish these people would comment on…
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I don't think the US ever "rushed in" to attack Russian forces; even in the heated 1960s, people thought long and hard before pushing those nuclear buttons. There are many ways to provide military aid, not all of them involving your own troops; and with the rise of a strongly anti-Russian EU Commission, I bet all these options will be considered sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, it took years for NATO…
As a U.S. citizen, I have been extremely confused about why there has been no global response to Ukraine, especially from Europe. You seem to be implying that the EU does not care about Ukraine at all and is only responding to the crisis there to the extent the US is pushing for it (i.e., not very much). Why not? Surely Europe doesn't want to set a precedent that Russia can foment and fund an "opposition", claim the…
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>The PATRIOT Act already forced a number of companies to open European datacentres to satisfy particularly-picky customers; It's not picky customers, it's everyone. It's literally the first discussion that occurs. Any company in any part of the world wants their data in a datacenter near them, that follows rules they are comfortable with. It cannot be overstated just how important this issue is to foreign companies.
> It's not picky customers, it's everyone. It's literally the first discussion that occurs. In my experience that often wasn't the case until Snowden came about, but I guess it might depend on specific sectors. I agree that now it's absolutely everyone.
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My work is very much involving this, and it does have to do with protecting customers, because those customers won't exist unless Microsoft stands up to this. It's very much an issue with all companies that are non-US. That's why my company is putting datacenters everywhere. Chinese demand a Chinese data center for Cloud computing. This happens all over the world, and our strategy is all about that. This is a very re…
This is a very real issue, and if the US states that any US company has to turn over data, you can kiss every customer from another country goodbye. It's not as if Microsoft is selling access to the highest bidder, or considering a request from another company or a charity. Turning over specific data in the face of a court order is not going to drive every customer away, many will see that as acceptable, low risk, re…
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The job of a judge is exactly to NOT see "what is wrong with this". Activist judges are very, very bad. Congress, and to a lesser extent POTUS, are the parties that have voted in these laws and are controlling the agencies doing this, and have the power to change them. Judges should NOT attempt to do so. That is the very definition of what a judge does.
False, activist judges can be good or bad, but are usually good. Unless you are anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-desegregation, then yeah, you might think it's terrible.
Both parties have mastered using presidential appointments to the supreme court to "change" the law. This is very bad, as they're not supposed to be in control of that. The judiciary's "check and balances" check is mostly to prevent congress from going against the constitution (ridiculous example: voting slavery back in with 51% of votes). That is their function.