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Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

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Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#61

Post by satellite2 »

csense wrote: post #60

This applies to any company, doesn't it? Your home country can tell you "Give us your data" and you have to comply. "I will never give up customer data" is a very tough promise to keep, if the government threatens you with your business license being revoked, your servers and domains being forcibly seized by the police, and you personally going to jail. (Under the current US administration, we can add "A close examin…

Of course. But what if the holding lives in a country that don't enforce this (or is too weak to). Then all the subsidiaries are really sovereign from the host country perspective.

It seems the solution is ages old. Don't have the holding incorporated in an empire...

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#63

Post by rdtsc »

Havoc wrote: post #59

The whole concept of big cloud somehow setting up sovereign clouds in Europe seems incredibly naive to me. Every AWS employee knows where his bread is buttered - Seattle not Brussels

Yup. I always thought it was a way just to get business in EU. Do some performative dance of "hey, look! a separate DC building with EU employees only" and then hope nobody would ask too many questions.

Then the next level is regulators in EU also have to care and can't just say "ok, you have a separate DC building with EU employees only. Good. My job is done, I checked" and move on.

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#64

Post by segfaultex »

timeon wrote: post #42
josephh wrote: post #21

But then who can? No global cloud providers, including Hetzner and OVH, are free from CLOUD act because they have US presence[1]. 1. https://us.ovhcloud.com/legal/faqs/cloud-act/

Who? You can use Hetzner and OVH proper instead of US subsidiaries. Using AWS/Azure/GC in Europe these days is pretty risky for more than one reason.

I think we'll see a lot of companies moving away from public cloud providers in the future, but I don't think it'll be because of any privacy-related concerns.

It rarely makes economic sense to deploy workloads onto the public cloud unless you have critical uptime requirements or need massive elasticity.

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#65

Post by segfaultex »

fukka42 wrote: post #51
potsandpans wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US by and large can (and does) assert authority outside of its jurisdiction, from which another country can choose to capitulate. Most of the time countries do, because they are all swapping data on their citizens between themselves to skirt various laws. In the case where the US really wants something, and the country won't yield, they'll fund contras or destabilize the government (if small enough to be bullied)…

They can assert what they want, they have no way to enforce it. Pretty funny you're jumping straight to warfare. This proves why Americans cannot be trusted. In any case, it's better for me that the Americans will need to start a war with the EU to get at my data instead of just giving it to them.

I'd argue that placing faith in any large institution is folly. Especially when that institution has a bunch of perverse incentives to act immorally.

Any nation with any amount of leverage has abused it.

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#66

Post by mk89 »

Havoc wrote: post #59

The whole concept of big cloud somehow setting up sovereign clouds in Europe seems incredibly naive to me. Every AWS employee knows where his bread is buttered - Seattle not Brussels

Apparently someone buys it, otherwise AWS would not invest 8+ billions in Germany: https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/aws/aws-plans-to-invest-7-8-...

"If it's certified, it must be good".

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#67

Post by jeppester »

Anyone who's read the law has known this for years.

The GDPR is incompatible with the Cloud Act, and so the only legal (or so it should be) way to use US companies is to treat them like unsafe third countries - no matter the data center location.

But everyone wants to continue like before. Having to ensure that Amazon and Azure never touches unincrypted personal data is hard. So one "compromise" after another has been tried - never solving the actual problem.

As a EU citizen I think it's entirely embarrassing. Either the EU should have the power to force European subsidiaries to be exempted from the cloud act, or everyone should be forced to abide the law, which would greatly boost EU tech. Instead we are just rolling over.

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#68

Post by autoexec »

csense wrote: post #60

This applies to any company, doesn't it? Your home country can tell you "Give us your data" and you have to comply. "I will never give up customer data" is a very tough promise to keep, if the government threatens you with your business license being revoked, your servers and domains being forcibly seized by the police, and you personally going to jail. (Under the current US administration, we can add "A close examin…

The trick is to collect as little data as possible and to get rid of what you need to collect as quickly as you can. This is in direct opposition to the practices of companies like Microsoft which wants to spy on their users and profit from the data they collect though.

There's also an open question of how possible it is to run a system that doesn't collect/store data in a way that makes it possible to be collected by the government. The US government can force companies to compromise their systems or shut down their services if they refuse. In the past they've even threatened that shutting down a service instead of compromising it could still get operators in legal trouble.

At this point anyone who wants to keep the US government out of their data should avoid using any US company.

Re: Microsoft Can't Keep EU Data Safe from US Authorities

#70

Post by autoexec »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #58
eeasss wrote: post #48

This is known. The problem is that the EU is hooked on us technology. I don’t see this untangling soon which is a big strategic weakness

Pretty much yes. From Saas to authentication systems to OS to chips. The EU infra is entirely dependent on the US. All documents, emails, chat messages, and most forms of storage are directly or indirectly linked to an American service. On top of that, the US can update it all remotely, including the hardware now thanks to things like intel ME. Let's hope we never get into a conflict with them, because even without b…

> From Saas to authentication systems to OS to chips. The EU infra is entirely dependent on the US.

I would absolutely love to see the EU invest in developing processors and operating systems. It'd benefit us all to have real competition in those spaces, and it's the only way the EU can ever keep their data out of the hands of the US government.

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