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US Unhappy With Australians Storing Data On Australian Shores
Fluffeh writes "The United States' global trade representative has strongly criticized a perceived preference on the part of large Australian organizations for hosting their data on-shore in Australia, claiming it created a significant trade barrier for U.S. technology firms. A number of U.S. companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely the Department of Defence had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that 'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments.' Recently, Acting Victorian Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall highlighted some of the privacy concerns with cloud computing, particularly in its use by the local government. He said the main problems were the lack of control over stored data and privacy, in overseas cloud service providers."
The irony-meter is off the charts. Or is this a late April-fools-article?
Seriously?
The hell you say! Saving data in your own country, so that foreign governments can't judge your citizens by their laws? That's crazy talk, I think you should have a serious conversation with my sponsor, the MPAA.
Why would this be a problem? The farther away their "cloud" is, the worse the performance. There's enough of a performance hit just trying to cram all that data through a company's entartube without stretching that tube many thousands of miles for no good reason.
Is that really them throwing their toys out of the pram?!
"How dare the Aussies deny us from intercepting data and shutting down sites by Australian companies and citizens"
My other Sig is very funny.
Hey, you're supposed to be using our Cloud(TM)(R)(C)(WTF), not making you're own!
Oh boy, oh boy what poetic justice.
First the EU, then Australia. It wont take long until other countres give the finger to the US.
Say should we expect some invasion in the forthcoming months ? ^_^
Whoever is in charge of Australia's defence department is an asshole and I happen to agree with him. WHY is it even close to being a good idea to send data out like that and especially in the US? Sorry, but I don't trust the US government.
I wish I was surprised that the US has the nerve to be angry after the megaupload arrests. I don't engage in any of this but even I'm worried about having a VPS hosted on US soil.
Australia and New Zealand are notorious for having "pipe problems" due to the long-haul links they have to use, and the US expects them to have all their critical business data travelling those overloaded pipes for the convenience of US agencies and companies??!?!!?!
So the convenience of American firms is now justification for slagging the sound and reasonable business practices of foreign nations?
Navel gazing US again. If they navel gaze any closer they're going to find themselves eyeballing their own stomachs from the inside... :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I live in the US. With the recent mega upload fiasco and some of the other craziness, I think it's a smart move for foreigners to avoid hosting in the US.
US courts are trying to reach into other countries now. We've got way to much craziness here to trust us. The government should have known their actions will have consequences.
The biggest and simplest question when deploying a "Cloud Solution" is very simple
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT RAINS??
In this case it makes sense for a company based in %Nation% to have the primary servers in %Nation% or if thats not possible in %AlliedNearbyNation%.
heck if a US (based) company wants to do "Cloud" things in and for say Australia then it stands to reason that a nonzero number of DCs should actually BE IN AUSTRALIA. (don't they have a bit of a bandwidth problem??)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
One of the reasons we don't like hosting stuff on American servers is due to one of their laws that the FBI (and similar agencies) can obtain data with a warrant that tells the service (cloud) provider not to tell the customer us. We have our own private cloud infrastructure here in Perth and spread to Adelaide and Sydney with talks of having some in Singapore. We do not want our data on cloud infrastructure we don't manage in another country.
Just raise an eyebrow, look the trade representative in the eye for a long, quiet moment, and then get back to work.
on suspected members of Men-At-Work will soon follow.
As someone who regularly solutions cloud services for customers, I can assure you, the exact location of the cloud is very important to our big customers. Being able to say it's based out of entirely Canadian datacenters on an entirely Canadian network is a huge advantage over our competitors south of the border. It's not like any of them have been bitten yet, but the perception is that their data is much less safe in another country.
Is that the person responsible for safeguarding Victoria's secret?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Fuck You.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The U.S. trade representative, whose sole job is to promote U.S. companies overseas, is complaining because the Australian government is telling Australian companies not to use American companies for a certain service? In other word, a guy whose job it is to complain about trade barriers is complaining about trade barriers? HOW DARE HE?
Just because the US blindly trusts China and India with their data, doesn't mean the rest of the world wants to trust anyone but their own country.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
As a US citizen, I can't help but think WTF. Let them (and the rest of the world, for that matter) do whatever the fuck they want.
So that the FBI and NSA can search data belonging to Australians whenever they damn well like?
Well guess what?
They can just **** off.
don't want your cloud data backed up in Utah!
Did the clown sprouting this crap listen to himself? God forbid a country that isn't the USA look after it's own industries and interests! To be honest I and many Aussies can't trust the Yanks as far as we could throw them, let alone let them store our data. Typical self centred 2 year old tantrum by some Yank dickwad who thinks the world should revolve around the USA. Yet another reason to build a 100ft wall around the USA until their idiot government/corporations (same thing?) learn to play with the grown ups.
I perceive that housing data in the US not just a security risk but also a not sound investment.
We (Australians) prefer knowing whom we are storing data with and knowing that it doesn't leave the country.
If we did store the data offsite and an International link goes down then we would be hamstrung until that link is fixed or re-routed.
The point of a trade representative to another country is to shill, without principle, for the interests of their country's economy. If the US Trade Representative gets too pushy, just remind him that if the US ever has any intention of "containing China," Australia is one of those "do not piss off, under any circumstances" regional bases. It's especially important to have on our good side in the event China ever goes batshit crazy by seizing Taiwan, then says "since we've already risked WWIII, let's just go ahead and invade South Korea and Japan as well since their armies aren't worth shit."
Would you store your beer collection in a country where it's legal to piss in it?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If they are that concerned with location, why don't companies who want to sell them a service just setup a datacenter in Australia and follow the local law. Oh I see that would cost money and they already have datacenters in the us they could use.
Yeah, and the worst, most intrusive government award goes to....
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I think the US trade representative is a baboon that just learned how to read.
Australia will strongly critize that USA stores their data on-shore in USA. Furthermore they wish that all american jobs should be relocated to Australia to help fight australian unemployment.
I don't get it, did this get mixed up when this was translated from the original Australian?
Keep your data, and everything actually sensitive domestic and well under control. The US doesn't own the security of individuals and nations over the world, and as I see it (I'm not US based nor an American citizen) it can't really afford it anymore, only claim it. The US barks, but I doubt it will bite. And there's a more practical issue : Australia is not easily connected to the rest of the world and the Australian network is already full of friction as it is.
As long as America makes the rules. What do you think the US government would do if we started storing all of our data on Australian servers? We would tell Americans that it is safer and more productive to keep that data here. This country is so full of itself; It is amazing.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Next thing you know, they'll want to drink their own beer, too.
First of all, he is supposed to point out *real* trade barriers. When Australian government provides information about the numerous problems of using USA based cloud services from Australia (connection problems, lag, ability of USA government to snoop on it, etc.), he's not obligated to complain...
That said, if it was coming from any other country, I could go "Just some government official overstepping a bit. It happens. Nobody will listen. Why is this newsworthy?" but USA has *very* strong track-record about massive behind-the-scenes lobbying in issues similar to this one (see: USA influence on other countries' copyright legislation, etc.) and whenever something actually gets out, it's probably just the tip of the iceberg.
I work for an American cloud service provider, and even we do not want to store our(customers') data in the U.S. The patriot act is a huge obstacle when selling to foreign customers. Hence why we have a major data center in Canada, and are looking at putting one in the U.K.
(see http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/patriot-act-and-privacy-laws-take-a-bite-out-of-us-cloud-business.ars)
AccountKiller
Dear Australia,
I, an American Citizen and veteran of the Marine Corps where I served an an infantry machine gunner, and filling billets including intelligence analyst and company clerk, sincerely apologize for this.
Although this isn't my fault (for I was not allowed to vote while I was in the service. This is my opinion, I found it too much of a coincidence that my ballot and that of a friend from the same state arrived exactly 1 month to the day after it was supposed to be postmarked for return. Twice.), you can bet I will vote this round, and will not be voting for anyone that is currently in office, for they all allow these things to happen, which is an embarrassment to us all.
I'm E-mailing my senators and congressman now. I have other concerns to raise with them anyway, like why my state charges sales tax on private sales of vehicles (double taxation) and why they want to charge tax on the Real Market Value of said vehicle even though it was sold for 1/3 that price (taxing money not spent).
Sincerely,
Troubled American Citizen
P.S. Are you guys still open for citizenship? At times it's more prudent to abandon a sinking vessel rather than continue trying to fix what is so severely broken.
Maybe someone needs a dose of laser guided democracy!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The USA media demigods prolly claiming all rights to Waltzing Matilda and Advance Australia Fair
"The irony-meter is off the charts..."
Particularly since this article is immediately followed on the page with "Baboons learn to identify words". It seems that at least some baboons haven't learned to associate sense with those words.
Trust no one. Encrypt everything.
Because of the US Patriot Act the province in which I live has made it illegal for me, a government employee, to store personal information (including email addresses, age, views about things, etc.) about citizens on US servers. If I do I could be fined $2,000 and my municipal office could be fined $500,000. Sooo Mr. US, repeal your Patriot Act and then come back to us about using your servers.
Is the US upset that the Aussies are storing data on-shore or that the government there is telling the truth of the perils of storing off-shore?
..want to store their data in the US?
With their history of Illegal Wiretapping, Ignoring treaties they've ratified, Ignoring international law, performing industrial espionage and doing just about whatever the hell they want without regards to economic impact or deaths inflicted - it's just plain stupid.
The simple fact of the matter is that you cannot trust the US Government to be honest.
Even if the USA had sane laws & law enforcement, the fact that your data is sitting on the other side of the planet adds a lot of latency.
The speed of light is the limiting factor, and we haven't figured out how to beat that one yet.
Further, the high cost of fat pipes in Australia strongly discourages cloud providers.
This is complete hypocrisy from the US, as per usual. They demand on-shore "GovCloud" hosting from the likes of Amazon (http://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/) and other cloud providers, yet expect other countries to offshore their data to the US?
Crazy.
has the same issues, even "Safe harbour" isn't useful to us as NSL dolled out under Patriot Act etc make a nonsense of this.
We'll keeps our own data thanks until you get some decent data protection legislation thats worth anything
(The first think I thought when I read it, especially when I read what the Aussie DoD said.)
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
If and when the USA start respecting human rights and demonstrably enforce an even marginal privacy legislation where corporates cannot simply muscle their way into any private nook and cranny they take an interest in, I guess business entities in other countries would start seeing the USA as a viable competitor in the data storage business. Until then I guess they only rank marginally higher than North Korea for such purposes ...
Oh, yes, like the treaties between the US and EU with regards to privacy and security.
The US government and its intelligence agencies say that the treaty does not matter, if it's owned by an American company [incorporated in Europe]it will still be subject to US laws and demands... That kind of treaty? Two-faced deception?
If a branch is incorporated in Europe it's a local, legal entity, it is only subject to European laws, regardless of foreign ownership. In fact the treaty should "cover" it from any American laws, but alas that's not the case.
You cannot trust branches of American corporations abroad to respect local laws due to the legal pressure they face at home. I don't blame them, they have no choice but to obey.
The RIAA & MPAA claim it's unfair that independent artists can make their own music and movies, burglers claim that it's unfair that people can lock the doors to their houses, and the Justice Department claims that it's unfair that they have to prove someone is guilty. Additionally car manufacturers claim that it's unfair that they can't force people to buy new cars every 3 years, the oil companies claim it's unfair that the government isn't paying them taxes, and the banks claim it's unfair that they have to give you your money when you withdraw it.
I call for getting our "Global Trade Representative" fired. What an idiot.
European corporations have realized this as well - put the data on US servers and the US gov't can invoke the Patriot Act to look at it totheir heart's content - for no reason other than saying it is for national security, ie, if we can't the terrorists win
This was completely predictable. (Moreso than the weather.)
An obvious side-effect of proposing US laws like SOPA and PIPA was loss of hosting business.
I wonder if the US department of defense would allow its contractors to ever host their data in Australia?
As an American Citizen, I also store my data overseas - I have nothing to hide, but I like to think that it makes it less likely that my data will be swept up in a Megaupload type seizure.
Even if the USA had sane laws & law enforcement, the fact that your data is sitting on the other side of the planet adds a lot of latency.
The speed of light is the limiting factor, and we haven't figured out how to beat that one yet.
Further, the high cost of fat pipes in Australia strongly discourages cloud providers.
I cannot get into specifics to protect my identity but this is why you want to have at least a cache of your data in australia if you are a multi-national. It makes no sense whatsoever for Australian entities to store their data in the US.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"Alligators complain that birds will not nest in their jaws. Cites discriminatory nesting practices." Damn near makes me ashamed to be American that officials AND COMPANIES here are that stupid and absolutely clueless. The irony of this almost requires no further comment.
I work for a financial institution and the main reason for the paranoia around storing data in the cloud is that no cloud company would allow one of the companies internal experts to inspect their environments to the level that is required by governance.
as it is eaten so it shall pass
That wall will be built by the Americans themselves if it ever comes about. It is not so likely now that either Obama or Romney will end up as President.
However the United States has always had periods of voluntary and ideologically founded Isolationism. If you give them another shock to the system like 9/11 or internal forces such as the Tea Party pushes them in that direction they could very well decide to shut their doors to the greater world.
I don't think the world will be better off without the US, we might not like everythng the US does, but it has probably been more beneficial than bad. I'm not disregarding the wars, mistakes and indirect suffering, but whatever power leads the world in the future will have to make the same tough decisions. You can't have stability without the threat/use of force.
"'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments" -- so true.
The capture by the Royal Navy of not one but two Enigmas at sea in the course of the war was very important to the Battle of the Atlantic, and hence to the survival of the UK, but it surely had little effect on the outcome for the USA. I suggest that radar and rdf were actually as, if not more important, and that in those cases honours are even - the magnetron in the UK, and the work of the Rad Lab at MIT. In fact, in a bad attack of historical revisionism, the work of the Rad Lab may well have been far more important than the Manhattan Project. With complete air and sea superiority, an invasion of Japan was never necessary - the entire country could have been contained until it had no fighting assets left. The Bomb was just cheaper. But without radar, control of the Pacific and the Atlantic would have taken much, much longer.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Locality rules the universe. Networked storage and communications are subject to the same laws of physics as everything else.
I'm sure that if the US government is willing to guarantee that they will never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever (including "anti-terrorism", etc.) allow or cause to be inspected or revealed in any way the data hosted, under penalty of death - then maybe people will be willing to trust them.
But since agencies like the NSA already try to collect data stored overseas, it seems obvious that storing it in the US will only make their job easier.
Yes.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
implying that 'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments.'
I think it's a fine implication! It certainly rings true to me.
Anything internet that comes into or leaves the US is copied and recorded, AT&T secret room et all. This is KNOWN. Think about the UNKNOWNS, too; that is the government doing the same thing at nodal points all around the country. It's a secret because it's national security - if it becomes widely known that our government's agencies are spying on domestic internet packets, it DOES make the nation less secure, because people don't want that, and they don't trust the government not to mishandle it.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2779659&cid=39675207
Thank you, I think it's fair to say the US receives plenty of feedback and most of it's negative. That's just the way humans work. We hardly praise people when things are just fine? :)
"... number of U.S. companies had expressed concerns that various departments in the Australian Government, namely the Department of Defence had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that 'hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinized by foreign governments"
umm.. so they are upset because the Aussies are telling the truth? after all that has gone on over the last few years, only a fool would store important data on servers in the U.S. I don't even buy .com/.net/.org/.me/... domains anymore and they want data hosted in their country? lol.
In Canada, it is illegal for public agencies or IT companies serving them to store customer/member data on US-operated servers because the Patriot Act contravenes Canadian privacy laws. Many other Canadian associations and businesses have similar policies, because Patriot Act searches would violate their infomration privacy policy.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
They should offer data restores from the NSA for a price...
* Accidentally delete an email? Just call the NSA and we'll send you a copy of it.
This sig contains a manual self-destruct. Kindly please put your foot through your monitor in 8 seconds.
They seem to have the idea they own your data and will do whatever they want with it. It's not worth my time storing my data in a country that aspires to be Nazi Germany.
Also Australia is about as far as you can get away from the US who is stupid enough to think they would want to pile on a load of latency on their transfer as well as risking the US government taking their data?
If facts count at all in this disagreement, then the Aussies are correct.
Anytime you have a long network hop to your data, it is at greater risk for downtime and inaccessibility. This is a fact, not a political thought.
I live in the USA and work in IT. I would not host my data in Australia unless I wanted to have times when it was inaccessible and was willing to put up with clogged networking.
Heck, I'd like to host my data outside the USA too .... just to prevent the US government from feeling they deserve access to it, which they do not.
More and more countries need to only store data in the USA for end customers who are actually located inside the USA. I'd try to keep my infrastructure outside the US too based on FBI server-grabs. The FBI has grabbed entire racks of servers because they were too lazy to figure out which specific server was believed to hold the "offending" data. The other 3000 websites were gone and I read that after a year, the servers were still not returned. Too bad if your company data is "close" to some supposed "bad guys" - they take and figure out the issue later.
* http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/22/0217200/fbi-seizes-servers-in-virginia
* http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387447,00.asp
* http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157
* http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10220786-240.html
and the recent megaupload seizures
* http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars
A Canadian service provider was caught up in a raid like th
is and immediately contacted the US-FBI special agent to be told they were too busy to work with them.
The US government is arrogant based on these actions and others.
If I were in Australia, there's no way that I'd host data in the USA for non-USA-based users.
Now can someone tell me what a cloud is?
I think that's probably more a matter of the path of least resistance.
The US doesn't get its way at the expense of everyone else, just a little more in its favor sometimes. That's probably better than no progress at all in some areas. If the issue is of crucial importance even the US meets serious resistance (see ACTA, GM foods and WTO).
The EU is also attempting to lead by policy, such as the RoHS directive, and increasingly becoming more proficient/successful at it. Similar to how California sets the standard for the US in many areas. There are [some]gains for the majority despite the consequences, and someone needs to take the lead.
I am by no means an apologist for the US, I'm a European/Scandinavian, and while I have mixed emotions my aim is to be objective and try to view matters in a historical/anthropological perspective. It's obviously too broad a subject to answer with a few sentences :)
The Australian on-shore folk are right on the money. If the US doesn't want to feel shut out about other people storing their data in US servers, then they can just rub out that Patriot Act that allows the US government to access any information without warrant, and in secret (there are mandatory criminal charges for 3rd parties for disclosing to people that their data is being browsed by the US government). In this case, all the concerns are warranted and justified, the security concerns valid. There also isn't anything stopping the US government from "Assisting" US firms by providing information gleaned via the Patriot Act to them.
I don't think it's just the Australians, but most of the world that doesn't want to store data inside the US.
I work for a cloud server provider. We recently opened two new data centers, one in the US, one in Canada. The Canadian and American data centers are both equivalent, no major difference except geography.
While the Canadian one is growing in leaps and bounds, (with customers from all over the world, not just Canada and the US,) the US bound one is growing /much/ slower. While I can't be sure, my own opinion is that people would rather not store data inside the US, given a choice.
Duh!
It is a greater risk. Amazon, GoDaddy, and lots of other providers fail to make proper backups, faile to peoperly encrypt the data, and those providers have the keys to the data. It is ALWAYS a case of puting your data in somebody elses hands and it's only a mater of time until those providers claim it is theres.
Let's also not forget that there was a lot of valid data on Megauploads that the true owners no longer have access to, and some of that data is time sensative and/or security sensative and it was taken out of the hands of the owners. o rather, the OWNERS put it in the hands of others and it was further taken away from them.
If someone not you has your data they have access to it as well. Common sense duh!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
USA unhappy with Australia not wanting to be raped by nosy USA agencies.
Rest of world unhappy with USA trying to tell them how to run their countries. Rest of world unhappy with USA trying to fuck them over.
Rest of world wants USA to mind its own fucking business.
USA beacon of democracy and freedom is really no better than communist China. Run by a bunch of corporations, for the corporations.
USA PFO.
Unless you are very little and only need a tiny storage, makes no sense to have any cloud service.
I have half rack for $400 / month plus about $500 / month in hardware deprecation (3 years),
So far I got in 5 1u servers virtualized with proxmox, and several terabytes of storage.
The equivalent computing / storing power in the cloud will be several thousand u$s,
(more than $40k / month in e.g. a rackspace equivalent)
... and the State of Victoria’s Privacy Commissioner had been sending negative messages about cloud providers based outside the country, implying that “hosting data overseas, including in the United States, by definition entails greater risk and unduly exposes consumers to their data being scrutinised by foreign governments”
of course, he doesn't say it's not true (because it is true)
so overall it's more that they pointed out a negative aspect
India is cheaper, closer, better connected to Australia (ie. a bit more than two anchor drags away from cut off and more total bandwidth at the best of times), and if a legal dispute goes international you are just as screwed if you have to get lawyers in country A or country B. Also the US government has made it very clear that they expect full access to your data with no legal recourse while other nations that respect the rule of law have not made that clear so there is an expectation that they won't go poking about.
Sorry US providers, but your government has made it difficult for you to compete in that market. Better luck somewhere else.
Personally I think that if any legal or access problems can't be solved by ringing somebody up in your own time zone then you are doing something wrong anyway. Hosting data in Australia for US use is just as stupid.
The US is transitioning from an information based economy to a litigation based economy.
The USA isn't happy unless it has control over; copyrights, patents, oil, and I guess the attitude of other country to do it's own thing, even if it's within the law.
Well said to keeping your private data safe - and private. The US is really on a slow downward spiral much like the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. Spending more than they earn trying to be the world police force will never work and then adding all the world's data to insecure (because of the Patriot Act) servers will really only mean that everyone eventually gets Zuckered!!! Of course, if you have information that the US deems critical to national security, they are obliged by law to obtain it and use it for themselves. Fail.
This sword cuts both ways. An australian cloud vendor that then tries to sell to a global company - would be hurt by protectionist thinking like this. Cloud vendors - no matter what country they are headquartered in - base their whole business model on the fact that the physical location of data is irrelevant. its just 1s and 0s on a disk drive somewhere. You can put a secure server on the moon if you want to. Once any country starts demanding that data be located physically in one country, the whole concept of providing a cloud solution to a global company that needs a multi-country view of its data starts to fall apart. If multiple countries start enacting rules like this - it would be a huge step backward for not just enterprise cloud computing - but for the internet in general. Remember - the fact that world is flat has already been established. There is no putting that cat back in the bag.