Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Patriot Act Dampening Cloud Computing?

Posted by kdawson on from the hey-you-get-offa-my-cloud dept.

Julie188 writes "Governments are turning the Internet into a cyberspace reflection of real-world geographic conflicts. One report says that the Canadian government is forbidding its IT organizations to use services that store or host the government's data outside their sovereign territory. They especially cannot use services where the data is stored in the United States because of fears over the Patriot Act. What kinds of jurisdiction issues might people face — think Google cooperating with the Chinese government — as cloud computing becomes the norm and your data is stored in 'offshore parts' of the cloud?"

3 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. The Audacity! by eternalelegy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Patriot act hampering something more important than its intended purpose? Oh the Blasphemy!!

  2. I refuse to comment until we tackle the real issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Which is what's being done about the Patriot act and its effect on Sephiroth computing...

  3. Re:Patriot Act Aside ... by mpe · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Canadian government trying to keep things in Canada is very standard practice. I didn't RTFA and I'm sure it mentions the Patriot Act, but I really doubt the Patriot Act is the sole reason that they won't outsource hosting companies to the US. Their policy is most likely that they can not outsource anything to anywhere outside of Canada unless they have no choice.

    Thus you could call Canada's actions a "patriot policy" or even a "patriot act" :) Being reluctant to outsource anything outside one's country undoubtedly is patriotic.