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New Privacy Laws Could Boost EU Cloud Industry
sweetpea86 writes "Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the U.S. Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn't end up in the hands of U.S. authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction."
considered a safe harbour from the US Patriot Act?
Parent's Link is a virus. Do not click it.
See? See?!? Responsible, consumer-friendly legislation doesn't have to be anti-business.
We've got this thing in my country with the one political party saying that they're pro-consumer and trying to push laws that limit corporate abuses, and the other party saying that they're pro-business and trying to squash anything that would reduce corporate size and influence with the claim that it's necessary for jobs, the economy, etc. Well bullshit. Some consumer-friendly legislation may be anti-established business, but that's not a negative, just thinning the herd. Get rid of the sick and bring on the new.
My employer (a university) decided to outsource the e-mail-facilities for students. Microsoft and Google both made compelling offers, however Google could not promise that our data would never leave Europe. Microsoft did make that promise and was awarded the contract because of it.
A few months later MS had to confess that they couldn't keep that promiss. As the migration was not going smooth at all we are now back talking with Google.
My Little Pony is actually a near-future post apocalyptic work, where the ponies have built their civilization on the ash and bones of the extinct human race.
They may look cute, but they have mobile armour and howitzers. It's pretty hard-core stuff.
No Company in the EU is safe from the US Gov. End of.
The US has laws that extend ALL US laws into every country in the world. They will use this to come after you if they even have the smallest suspicion that ther might just possibly mabe pehaps be something related to piracy, terrorism, child porn, anti US sentiments somewhere in your data.
Then it will be up to your government to tell the US what they can do with their extradition request. Mostly, they will roll over and let them take you.
The US also has laws where you can be held indefinitely without trial, charge or even access to a lawyer.
If you choose to go with a company that just happens to be a local subsidiary of a US company OR have a US subsidiat itself, they can wealk in without a warrant and take your data.
Where are you going for your hosting now?
The only truly private cloud is the one you own, manage and host yourself. For most users this is of course not feasible; they lack the knowledge, time and inclination to set one up. For us tech types however it's getting to the feasible stage.
We have all seen the news about the Raspberry Pi, a dirt cheap mini computer that can run on a handful of AA batterys. Take a linux distro of your choice which runs on the Raspberry Pi, add some lovely open source software like Zarafa, sprinkle lightly with a dynamic DNS and bake for however long you want in a cool Raspberry Pi. Serves an entire household (or more).
For that extra security flavour you can garnish with an OpenVPN connection, and deny all other incomming traffic.
Et voila! Mobile, web accessable email, contacts and calendar (plus whatever else you want to set up on there) with the data being on your machine and in your control.
Enough with this anti-"US law" crap... It's not a matter of the US laws but of the international treaties signed between US and its allies. No country dares to deny signing such treaties, because US has its ways.
I highly doubt the above statement, given this...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-signs-global-internet-treaty-worse-than-sopa.html
It won't really matter where the servers are in a particular jurisdiction, if your country has signed the Anti-Counterfitting Trade Act, you're pretty much screwed. So much for turning fear and uncertainty into an economic boon.
I wonder how successful would be a company providing data storage service like Dropbox, but with guaranteed data security. I mean that all encryption would be done by client software (with source code provided so everyone can verify that) and no keys or unencrypted data would be ever transmitted to company's servers. In this case complying with warrants and subpoenas would be no problem - here is all we have, have fun decrypting.
Not all nations in this world kow tow to the mighty Uncle Sam, you know?
True, but the notion there is anyplace that can fully guarantee data does not end up in the hands of the US (or any other country, for that manner) is naive. Each of these countries ha their own self interest at heart, and if the US (or some other country) wants their help doing something they just need to come up with a compelling reason for them to help. Governments also change, as do a nations goals and interests.
The bottom line is, once you cede control of your data to third party, you lose the ability to ensure it will never get passed on to someone's. Or,a s the saying goes, two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Except where a agreement exists in which the EU must give the USA authorities access to the data if it's about terrorism (or whatever), like with the bank transactions. Like the Swift agreement between the EU and the USA. It's an open secret that in order to spy on the citizens the USA and the EU have agreements of data sharing. Because of strict privacy laws in the EU they just agree to share the data with the USA, so the USA can see the data and tell the EU everything in order to fight terrorism (or whatever).
Face the fact: if you put your data in the cloud, the goverment have it. There is no way around it.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute