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ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

binnenlandsbestuur.nl

131–140 of 229 posts

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#131
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities Snowden leaked that fact before Microsoft made the admission. But it's good that it's coming from them officially nonetheless.

It kind felt like the ramifications of Snowden's leak were so wast that everyone just chose to forget about it.

IIUC Snowden sent complete trove to two publications only, and one of the computers containing the trove is destroyed through and through, disabling that publication for Snowden leaks.

Moreover, again as I understand, after a certain point the leaks are stopped, because the message was sent, and people now know the most important bits behind the curtain.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why this is the case though. Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ? Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

MSFT already operates in Europe via subsidiaries for a whole host of reasons. But hiving certain assets off in a subsidiary is very rarely effective to avoid laws and regulations that apply to the parent. The parent controls the subsidiary so a court or regulator having jurisdiction over the parent could order it to get what it needs from the subsidiary. This is particularly so in the US, which is kind of known for e…

> The parent controls the subsidiary so a court or regulator having jurisdiction over the parent could order it to get what it needs from the subsidiary.

But what if the parent’s jurisdiction orders the parent to order the subsidiary to do something illegal in the subsidiary’s jurisdiction? If local management obey the order, they risk being prosecuted by their jurisdiction’s authorities-so they’ll likely refuse. What is the parent going to do then? Fire them? But will any replacement act any differently? “Is this job worth going to prison over?” Most people answer “no”, and people who answer “yes” won’t last, because you can’t run a subsidiary from a prison cell.

I think the real issue here is that the US gets away with it because the EU is still so dependent on the US (see NATO) they can’t push back fully, at some point a political calculation takes over. So it could be that the US parent orders the subsidiary to do something illegal under EU law, and then the EU authorities choose to ignore it.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#133
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA has been very hostile to the ICC since way before Trump. The ICC was created in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either. Very few americans batted an eye as far as I could tell. Your are after all by definition exceptional. (/s)

> Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either. Small point of order, but it is the Senate that ratifies treaties and not presidents. The Senate is heavily biased to overrepresent rural areas, which tend to be very conservative, and only 40% of senators can stop any ratification. The ICC has been the subject of massive amounts of conspirac…

Fair. Clinton signed it on his last day in office but didn't submit it to the senate for ratification. Seems like he wanted it both ways.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I see the point. So MS US has credentials for the infra in EU. So no reason to deal with any European citizen or court. You just threaten the US IT guy to give you the EU credentials.

Yes, and the Cloud Act pretty much forces upper management to ensure that there is always a US IT guy that can be compelled to implement the wishes of The US Federal Government, as the penalties apply to executives of US companies, too. We can quibble about whether the term "threaten", which implies some moral wrong doing, is correct though. It's a law with defined criminal penalties. That's how criminal law works

[deleted]

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#136
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason most organizations use it -- inertia and because it's been the standard for so long, it's the best at what it does. The startup I used to work at was exclusively on OSX + GoogleDocs, when we were small, but as we grew (and especially when the Finance team grew) more and more employees found a need for the MS Office Suite as well as apps that only run on Windows, so they started rolling out Windows VM'…

I'm curious which apps only run on Windows. We are also a MacOS + Google Workspace shop and the microsoft requirements have been slowly seeping in.

I don't know what native apps they needed Windows for (I wasn't doing IT work by then), but I was still setting up PC's when they said they needed Windows Excel (not Excel on Mac, not Office365) for some forecasting spreadsheet product they purchased - it only ran on native Excel. We gave them Windows in a VM on their Mac at first, but eventually they had more and more apps that ran on Windows and moved from Mac to Windows laptops.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSFT already operates in Europe via subsidiaries for a whole host of reasons. But hiving certain assets off in a subsidiary is very rarely effective to avoid laws and regulations that apply to the parent. The parent controls the subsidiary so a court or regulator having jurisdiction over the parent could order it to get what it needs from the subsidiary. This is particularly so in the US, which is kind of known for e…

So let’s say I am eu citizen I own a data center company in Brussels. I sell 1 stock to MS USA. Can they at any point demand all my data ?

The laws I have read used the term “effective control”; if a shareholder is able to control the org (eg can replace the CEO or board), they are obliged to comply with government orders regarding that org.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#138
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either. Small point of order, but it is the Senate that ratifies treaties and not presidents. The Senate is heavily biased to overrepresent rural areas, which tend to be very conservative, and only 40% of senators can stop any ratification. The ICC has been the subject of massive amounts of conspirac…

Fair. Clinton signed it on his last day in office but didn't submit it to the senate for ratification. Seems like he wanted it both ways.

You're probably very right on that, Clinton listened to Kissinger on foreign policy and somebody like Kissinger is very much at risk if the US follows international law.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#139
post #84
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a U.S. specific issue. Once you strip away all of the formalities, titles, and ceremonies, you'll realize there's no such thing as international law, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. The law, by definition is a rule backed up by the use of force, specifically state-sanctioned violence. If you write a law but do not have the ability to use a sufficient amount violence to enforce it when ne…

There is international law. It is made up of all the treaties the big and small powers implemented together. But yes, not much is left now, but I would argue before Bush and 9/11 .. it was in a way better shape. Global military is not necessary, just consensus to enforce it. Practical example, there is no EU military, but there surely are EU laws EU members have to follow.

>Practical example, there is no EU military, but there surely are EU laws EU members have to follow.

EU has other levers to enforce compliance like ejection from Eurozone or Schengen Area.

Global military is required to enforce it because biggest stick wins. Many countries thinks Russia should be removed from Ukraine but no one has stepped up to provide the military to do so, ergo, in violation of international law they remain.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#140
post #66

Hei hei, I'm working for the XWiki and CryptPad projects, which are integrated in openDesk. Here are a couple links / infos that can be interesting to understand the context of openDesk. The openDesk project comes initially from an initiative of the Ministry of Interior of Germany in 2021, to build the alternative to Office 365. The project was progressively transferred in 2025 to a state-owned organization, the ZenD…

I find it fascinating to see how much power Germany's "digital sovereignty" initiative has gained. In the beginning, it looked like yet another government thingy that nobody will use. But by now, they must be well above 100k government employees using it daily.

Also, in case you missed that: StackIt is the AWS / G Cloud competitor by LIDL: https://www.stackit.de/en/ It's the basebone for their app strategy with 100 mio+ client installs and about 500k employees.

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