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Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

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Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#41

Post by skuhn »

nullrouted wrote: post #22
scintill76 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but Gmail just started doing that a year ago: http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5530072/google-encrypts-gm...

Lets be fair here though. Google encrypted their PRIVATE data links based on the Snowden reports. Most people/companies would assume their p2p (point to point) links would be private, which to be honest is a fair assumption.

It used to be a fair assumption, but now everyone has moved to encrypt any connectivity that goes outside of your physical oversight.

Some people are paranoid enough to encrypt cross connects within the same facility that run between cages or floors, which is a sad state of affairs (but, in my opinion, sensible).

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#42

Post by Nevermark »

tocf wrote: post #37
bigiain wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember "tax minimization" is legal, prudent, and a fundamental duty of company officers in these times of "maximise shareholder value" being the primary and legally mandated goal of a corporation. "Tax evasion" is crossing over a not very well defined and continually shifting line - and is illegal. At the moment, at least from where I see the world here in Australia, all the "global tech giants" (and mining/resourc…

You're exactly right. While we look at this stuff as despicable, because it really is, we can't blame the companies. Except ... we can, right? They're the ones who have manipulated the tax codes, right? They're practically writing the laws, right? Ultimately though, the politicians are the ones who are passing the laws. They're the ones who are being bribed, excuse me, funded, by corporations and the wealthy. To blam…

Why is tax minimization despicable? Countries should compete on all levels including economic efficiencies. Lower taxes is higher efficiency and an admirable achievement for a government.

What is despicable is that we all pay more taxes than our governments should actually need if they spent the money they took from us wisely.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#43

Post by Nevermark »

skuhn wrote: post #41
nullrouted wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets be fair here though. Google encrypted their PRIVATE data links based on the Snowden reports. Most people/companies would assume their p2p (point to point) links would be private, which to be honest is a fair assumption.

It used to be a fair assumption, but now everyone has moved to encrypt any connectivity that goes outside of your physical oversight. Some people are paranoid enough to encrypt cross connects within the same facility that run between cages or floors, which is a sad state of affairs (but, in my opinion, sensible).

Yes, the sensible solution is for all communication to be encrypted as tools and services get up to speed on that.

There is nothing to be gained by continually making judgement calls about which communications need to be secure and which don't. Like a lot of other technology, security needs to become pervasive so we can all take it for granted and worry about productive problems.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#45

Post by Darragh_Hayes »

As an Irish person I'm happy about this. As others have already mentioned, we've got a massive number (relative to our country's size) of fortune tech companies setting up camp here for a number of reasons.

12.5℅ corporation tax. We're not a tax haven, our rate is just at a sweeter spot. This policy was introduced by an taoiseach (prime minister) Sean Lemass during the 60's to stimulate economic recovery from one of the worst recessions we ever faced. The goal was to attract foreign investment and in particular from American companies that wanted to get a foothold in Europe. This guy is sort of revered in Ireland and everyone that takes Junior Certificate History (ages 12-15ish) learns about him. He's a pretty interesting leader because he was almost singlehandedly responsible for developing our country into a modern, global economy through various policies, plans and schemes.

European Law, I'm no expert in law but as far as I know our data protection laws are well established. Let's put it this way, our own government definitely isn't trying to keep track of your visits to the toilet. Although we're paranoid that the US probably is, or at least they want to!

Climate - funnily enough our famously terrible weather has an upside. The cost of cooling a data centre is cheaper. Our country isn't incredibly cold but it never really gets hot here either. Temperatures throughout the year are relatively stable.

As a CS student with only 1 year left to graduate I couldn't be happier with the 'mini tech bubble' we're experiencing. It's practically the only sector that's seeing significant growth and wage increases in the last few years. The economic crash in 2008 had a severe effect on the country as a whole. Fast forward to today - employment in software development, engineering and other related fields is being created quicker than they can find suitable candidates. I'm happy knowing that while so many other young people are being forced to immigrate, our tech sector is so saturated with jobs that CS grads like myself are being headhunted.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#46

Post by bigiain »

notatoad wrote: post #34
bigiain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But since Amazon has offices in the USA, the NSA considers all AWS hosted data in whatever country the Amazon operated data center is located in, to be under US jurisdiction. I had a client who pulled all their (encrypted) data off the Ninefold cloud (Ninefold were at the time a fully Australian owned and hosted company) when they leased data center space and opened an office in CA – due to data sovereignty concerns.

Isn't Dropbox also entirely aws-hosted?

Yep, and has exactly the same "company officers residing in the US" exposure to the NSA and any of the agencies fighting the war on [drugs|terrorism|pedos|political-rivals] getting closed or open court warrants with or without gag orders.

In fact Dropbox is doubly at risk, law enforcement or national security could target either (or both) Dropbox themselves - go straight to Amazon to get access at hypervisor level to their entire infrastructure.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#47

Post by angry_octet »

I couldn't help thinking BIGGEST RSYNC EVER. And, what is the bandwidth of a 747-8 full of 4TB disk? (140,000kg/0.6kg = 233,333 disks, downrate to 200,000 for packaging, 800,000TB. Approx flight time 10h SFO-DUB, load/unload, say 15h; 86400s. ~9TB/s. So pretty fast.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#49

Post by mikeyb555 »

s_dev wrote: post #35
mikeyb555 wrote: post #17

Title is wrong, this is just a tax minimization move and has nothing to do with data housing.

Ireland often gets a lot of flak from the US and the EU about being a "tax haven" with similarities drawn to the Isle of Man or the Cayman Islands. Irelands corporation tax rate is 12.5%, in the US the rate is often cited as 30% and similarly with France and Germany. However the "effective" corporate tax rate is actually lower than Irelands in many cases because there are many write offs and loop holes that mean comp…

There is some good data on this http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/pc/blog/countryefftaxrate...

By the way companies have 6 years to change their structure so the Double Irish still exists.

Re: Dropbox moves to Ireland for all customers outside of North America

#50

Post by capisce »

Nevermark wrote: post #42
tocf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exactly right. While we look at this stuff as despicable, because it really is, we can't blame the companies. Except ... we can, right? They're the ones who have manipulated the tax codes, right? They're practically writing the laws, right? Ultimately though, the politicians are the ones who are passing the laws. They're the ones who are being bribed, excuse me, funded, by corporations and the wealthy. To blam…

Why is tax minimization despicable? Countries should compete on all levels including economic efficiencies. Lower taxes is higher efficiency and an admirable achievement for a government. What is despicable is that we all pay more taxes than our governments should actually need if they spent the money they took from us wisely.

Countries don't just compete on taxes by providing the same service more efficiently, but also by providing a _worse_ service to their citizens. It's a race to the bottom.
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