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Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

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Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#131

Post by chad_oliver »

siculars wrote: post #118
zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

I have heard (no guarantees) that they collect information on everyone, and analyse it later as it is needed. They only investigate this information if and as if relates to a foreign suspect.

Doesn't seem like there's any way to abuse this .....

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#132

Post by DannyBee »

jmadsen wrote: post #125
siculars wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

That's what I've been wondering: - if they aren't targeting specific persons, how do they know what country the person is from & if they (the govt) are violating the law? - if I'm American living in another country, am I safer from or more likely to be tracked (terrorism aside) Am I being picked up "freely" as someone from outside the country? - many, many, many similar questions I'm sure you are also asking I realiz…

It is unlikely bullshit. They are likely not indiscriminate in targeting. It's just likely post-hoc targeting. That's the question you really want to ask: "So do you capture all the data, and then only look at the data for foreign people, or do you only capture data for foreign people?"

At one point, with watchwords/etc, it was clearly the latter. I think they've moved to the former.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#133

Post by reeses »

vertis wrote: post #53
jval wrote: post #40

This is a huge deal. I live in Australia and I have been running businesses on the cloud for the last 3 years or so. I have rarely heard the issue of the PATRIOT Act raised and in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted. Those days are most certainly over. This stuff will a…

I'm, also in Australia. NB: It's a real struggle to not make this sound paranoid. Just at an individual level, I'm questioning whether it's wise to store my data in a US service that won't afford me the same protection as US citizens. I've already started reducing my reliance on Google, and I barely use facebook, but things like Amazon and Linode are much harder for me to quickly divorce myself from.

Unfortunately, Oz is one of our spying partners, so your ASIO is probably just annoyed that the NSA can't keep its house in order.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#134

Post by nodata »

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

And this is a key point, a decision that many people said would never happen again: dividing the world into two groups of people is what started a few problems before.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#135

Post by DannyBee »

ritchiea wrote: post #31

One biggie that the author left out of the piece: The US Gov continues to insist that they are not monitoring the data of US citizens because that would be unconstitutional without warrants. But that's a tacit admission that they are openly monitoring the data of non-US citizens. I think this is one of the most important revelations of this leak, the US Gov has made it clear that if you are a non US citizen using a w…

I'm not entirely sure why you think a non-us citizen using a web service in the non-us is not similarly targeted?

Either by other intelligence agencies, or even more likely, that the NSA shares these abilities with other friendly foreign governments (UK, NZ, AUS, etc) in order to ensure their tacit approval.

Even in the world of intelligence, diplomacy matters. Secrecy only counts for so much. You can't keep the fact that you have a huge listening post in NZ secret, huge dishes don't look like they belong in cow pastures. Same with fiber optic cable. It's not like they can splice them without someone noticing. Instead, the way you accomplish this is by providing NZ what it wants while still retaining plausible deniability if things go south for them ("We had no idea the horrible NSA had secretly placed all this stuff here. We're completely outraged!")

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#136

Post by reeses »

hemancuso wrote: post #57
jval wrote: post #40

This is a huge deal. I live in Australia and I have been running businesses on the cloud for the last 3 years or so. I have rarely heard the issue of the PATRIOT Act raised and in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted. Those days are most certainly over. This stuff will a…

Agreed. I am surprised that Amazon, Rackspace et. al. aren't coming out and letting their customers know where they stand in all of this.

As Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! have demonstrated so far, a company can only make itself look worse by making any statement.

Any denial will be rejected as dissembling or sophistry and admissions of complicity would be suicidal.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#137

Post by flexie »

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

Absolutely. I remember how in 2001 when the US as the first country ever invoked article 5 of the NATO treaty, within hours all NATO members had followed through with support. And the minute of silence that was held all over Europe for the 9/11 victims. Then we joined them in two wars.

We bought their cell phones, their operating systems and productivity suites, their internet adds, hosting and email services and movies and music. We even let some of their largest corporations get away without paying taxes on the money they made in our countries.

We may not be citizens of their country but we are allies, not terrorists. When it comes to the bad things groups of people, such as governments, do to individuals, whether it's killing, torture, imprisonment with or without trial, surveillance or any other of the misdeeds that seems to have returned from the dark ages we deserve the same protection as American citizens.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#139

Post by einhverfr »

AlexeiSadeski wrote: post #123
einhverfr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My latest startup is Efficito (a Limited Company, registered in the UK). The web site is http://www.efficito.com and our servers are all in Europe. We have built the service up with a very careful eye for security (why we are going hosted cloud first, and multi-tenant is still in the works). You have just given me what I think is a very good possibility regarding a marketing message, namely that we are not subject to…

If you're outside of the US, then yes you are not subject to NSA orders. But your data will still be accessed by the NSA, as the NSA won't require an order to read what you've got.

The point is they cannot get a court to compel you to hand it over. Yes, they can take what they can get.
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