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."

Comments

ERROR

[Elbart]

The irony-meter is off the charts. Or is this a late April-fools-article?

Re:ERROR

[Anonymous Coward]

The US believes in being fair. They need the Australian government & companies to store data on US servers so it can be fairly stolen by them not just China.
They're too lazy/incapable of getting the data themselves.

Re:ERROR

[Moryath]

No, this is typical US attitude. They think they own the world.

If the rest of the world would tell the US to piss off, maybe things could get better. Instead, the US throws their totalitarian weight around and we get bought-off British judges trying to extradite British citizens to the US for conduct that occurred in Britain, between British citizens, that was 100% legal under British law because the US MafiAA wants to try to have the British citizen prosecuted under US fascist law.

Re:ERROR

[poetmatt]

yep. it's amazing the US is complaining here, but then again our country is on a constant downward spiral into idiocy. can't say I'm surprised.

Re:ERROR

[BlackSnake112]

I hope not he/she doesn't get modded to -1.

Is there a cloud based company that will not take a peek at any of the information stored on it's servers? Does anyone really believe that? Most companies are looking for any advantage they can get. If they happen to 'see' something and patent it first it might be really hard for a small company or single person to prove that in court. Meanwhile said company could be raking in the cash on that idea/data.

I am in the US. I work with people who do a lot if research. Most of them like the cloud idea for storing their research information. They like it until they realize that the host of the cloud can read their data.

Re:ERROR

[cfulton]

This is slashdot. We are not all tards and I will bet for the most part this forum agrees with the poster.

Re:ERROR

[fizzer06]

"our country is on a constant downward spiral into idiocy

Yeah, I saw the documentary "Idiocracy".

Re:ERROR

[Bob the Super Hamste]

With the lack of sleep last night my mind joined this headline with the previous one "Baboons Learn To Identify Words" as logically they seemed to go together. Sadly I don't think that relationship is too far from the truth upon further thought.

Re:ERROR

[Jumperalex]

PROOF!!!!!

" your Crayola sketched plans for world domination"

I thought you said you didn't look at my data mr. AC

Re:ERROR

[RelaxedTension]

You really don't understand the situation. People like me are paid to be paranoid, and to make sure that our company's data is safe from prying eyes as much as absolutely possible (In fact, we are legally responsible for it). I cannot afford to just toss our data out there and not worry about it. My job is to mitigate all of the possible things an outside entity could do to access that data. And fyi, a provider can setup the server such that they cannot read the data on it while still being able to administer the server itself.

And to the trade representative, boo-fucking-hoo. Instead of allowing US companies to guarantee data privacy, even when hosted outside of the country, the Patriot Act forces them to guarantee the opposite. As much as I would like to use a lot of the cloud services out there, I can't just because of that.

Re:ERROR

[gstoddart]

No, the US government is rightly concerned with the Australian government making spurious claims of security problems that harm legitimate competition for money from Australian companies, and is bringing up the issue with he Australian government, which is its job.

Sorry, but under the US Patriot Act, the US government has granted themselves unlimited, and secret access to any and all data stored on a US server.

I've done some contract work for the Canadian Government, and it is illegal to store certain kinds of information on US based servers because it would potentially violate Canadian law. There are companies who have arms-length subsidiaries whose job it is to handle government data that could not be allowed to be stored in the US. This is no different than similar issues with US owned companies accessing EU data because of the Patriot Act.

The US can claim their companies are being hurt by this, but the fact of the matter is, the US is not a trustworthy place to store your data unless you are also going to accept them potentially spying on your citizens.

This isn't a trade issue. It's a trust issue.

So if America wants to keep their Patriot Act which tries to violate the laws of other countries, their businesses are going to lose out in those markets if it would mean those companies can't comply with local laws and the US law at the same time.

Sorry, but these aren't spurious claims -- they're well established issues which have been covered before.

Re:ERROR

[Ihmhi]

Is there a cloud based company that will not take a peek at any of the information stored on it's servers?

Yes: SpiderOak. They are physically incapable of looking at your data:

Your SpiderOak data is readable to you alone. Most online storage systems only encrypt your data during transmission, meaning anyone with physical access to the servers your data is stored on (such as the company's staff) could have access to it. Or, even if your data is encrypted during storage, your password (or set of encryption keys) is often stored along with your data, thus making its easily decoded by anyone with local access to those servers.

With SpiderOak, you create your password on your own computer -- not on a web form received by SpiderOak servers. Once created, a strong key derivation function is used to generate encryption keys using that password, and no trace of your original password is ever uploaded to SpiderOak with your stored data.

SpiderOak's encryption is comprehensive -- even with physical access to the storage servers, SpiderOak staff cannot know even the names of your files and folders. On the server side, all that SpiderOak staff can see, are sequentially numbered containers of encrypted data.

This means that you alone have responsibility for remembering your password or 'Password Hint' (which you can create to help you remember) allowing SpiderOak to create a true 'zero-knowledge environment' – keeping your data as safe and secure as it can possibly be.

Re:ERROR

[gstoddart]

that's why I don't subscribe to any socialist principles, because they are the ones that operate on a belief that people are not rational actors

Have you looked around? Collectively, people aren't rational actors. The economic assumptions that the populace are rational actors acting on perfect information, and that the people in that market would never attempt to cheat, lie or steal is what finally made me realize your model of economics is based on untenable axioms. To me, it's your system which tries to make people into something they're not. People have been cooperating to eke out a better life for thousands of years. Precisely because it is in their best interest.

People do irrational things. People don't know what's always best for them.

Your system boils down to "fuck everyone else, as long as I have my gun to protect myself I can make it". That's not a "society", that's an uneasy peace since sooner or later one of these people who wants to win is going to remember it's far easier to just take it. You know, like Somalia.

You need to stop believing in Santa Clause.

And you the Easter Bunny. Or, maybe I should say Easter Bunnye since we're adding random e's.

As always, such a stimulating conversation.

I had forgotten how boring this stuff is and why I stopped reading Ayn Rand in the first place. Your rugged individualism is more like anti-social behavior to me. I also understand just how thoroughly committed you are to that viewpoint.

So, roll around in your ideology and fantasies of John Galt or being worthy enough to lick the boots of Dagny Taggart. I outgrew that shit 10 years ago.

Cheers

*cough* Megaupload *cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:*cough* Megaupload *cough*

[kulnor]

Read this article and you'll know why government, private companies, and individuals may not want their data in the "cloud", particularly when you know half of the Internet traffic likely transits through US soil: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

Re:*cough* Megaupload *cough*

[gstrickler]

Oh, I see. You must be a proponent of piracy. Just because we shut down one entity and try to extradite one of your citizens who did nothing more than allow his data to flow through routers in the US, you think we're a bunch of out of control bullies who think we can do anything we want, regardless of what any law says....Well, let me tell you...You're right. We are a bunch a bullies who thing we can do anything regardless of what the law says.

As a US citizen, I apologize for the idiots who have taken over our government, and I appreciate your refusal to accept our insane policies. We're fighting the battle here too.

LOLWUT???

[jtownatpunk.net]

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.

Toys - Pram

[flurdy]

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"

I'm an asshole too

[erroneus]

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.

Good for Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good for Australia

[donscarletti]

I live in China. I'd only consider a completely local hosting solution, not because the US government fucks you harder than the Chinese government, but simply because you're going to get fucked by the local one whatever you do, so better leave it at one than be double penetrated.

No America - you're not getting our data.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Cloud Perception

[rogueippacket]

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.

Re:Cloud Perception

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, God, you did not just use "solution" as a verb, did you? Really?

Victorian Privacy Commissioner

[Black Parrot]

Is that the person responsible for safeguarding Victoria's secret?

Dear United States trade representative

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Fuck You.

Why is this news?

[MikeRT]

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."

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Would you store your beer collection in a country where it's legal to piss in it?