Feds: We Need Priority Access To Cloud Resources

New submitter BButlerNWW writes "Federal agencies must be assured priority and uninterrupted access to public cloud resources before fully embracing the technology for national security and emergency response IT functions, a recent report finds. It recommends creating a program to develop a system to ensure federal organizations receive 'first-in-line' access to cloud-based resources during emergency situations."

Comments

How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about business continuity? What about friends, families and coworkers staying in touch? What about private companies that run CRITICAL infrastructure, like ISP data centers?

Fuck the feds. Just because it's government employees doesn't mean that it outstrips all other considerations, bar none. They act otherwise because if they can convince enough people, they get more money and power for themselves.

Re:How about no?

[INT_QRK]

The U.S. federal government mindset is shifting inexorably from its intended role of democratic representatives to that of rulers. So sad to see.

Re:How about no?

[chrb]

This article is just anti-government spin and alarmism. It is government policy to move as much computation as possible into the *public* cloud. This report just says that the public cloud, at the moment, is probably not ready for "national security and emergency preparedness" tasks. The report goes on to give examples of some of the service level agreement requirements that would be required ("continuous monitoring of the cloud infrastructure by the provider, third-party audits, data encryption and various certifications and accreditations, including continuously evolving accreditation requirements from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program").

Anyone arguing against this is going to have to produce a coherent rationale for using the public cloud for national security and emergency preparedness tasks, and show that public cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft will continue to operate effectively in a national security / emergency situation. Of course, "national security" is an over-broad umbrella that is used to shield too many places from the public view, but that is a another argument...

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the HELL would you want to risk matters of national security being sent over the public cloud!>?!?

You'd think that matters of high security would warrant their OWN PRIVATE Government run cloud servers...wouldn't you?

Any reason they would want priority access to the public cloud would be to access public information. If they are moving highly sensitive material over the public cloud, they're in much more trouble and shouldn't be worrying about priority access before worrying about the public accessing their data.

Re:How about no?

[MickyTheIdiot]

Not only rulers, but corrupt, entitled rulers demanding huge amounts of money for political favors.

Re:How about no?

[eric_herm]

Because someone will tell them this is cheaper. Because they already use some non governement owned infrastructure do for various things ( ie, last time I looked, the phone line were not private one to be used only for governement, the cars, etc ). In fact, even the weapons are not made by the governement directly, but by private companies ( not that this is good, or desirable, and I know that's more complex that ust public/private )

I think they are just saying "if someone want to propose to put our infrastructure there because that's hype, here is what we ask and need". That's IMHO easier to do with a private offer ( especially since lots of things are coming in free software on that part ), but they cannot just say "we will not go there", without giving justification. ( especially since that's the same justification than the requirement for a internal private cloud/IaaS infrastructure )

Re:How about no?

[Coeurderoy]

You might want to stick your head out of your own.
ANY organisation wich manage critical infrastructure, and it does not matter if it's critical for "them" or for the "public" should really think of it's policies when it comes to the cloud.

The real issue is that some bunch of idiots said "hyeaa we are all going to the cloud because it is sooo cheeappp", and so "hype" and all this "doublgoodness"...
And someone surprisingly enought wrote: well if you want to put critical infrastructure in the "public cloud" you'd better think twice,and see how much it really cost when you start asking hard question, like: if suddently we need 10x the processing capacity because of a large scale disaster, how will you prioritize ?

And BTW: if any private organization runs a critical service (security, fire protection, health care, etc...) and is not asking for similar level of services for what ever they put in the cloud, then they are either incompetent or thieving scums who are privatizing public services for private gains and giving sloppy services.
A competent and honest private organization with this kind of public mandate would make sure that it complies with what the public expect (and with what should be written in its mandate)

Re:How about no?

[arth1]

Why the HELL would you want to risk matters of national security being sent over the public cloud!>?!?

You'd think that matters of high security would warrant their OWN PRIVATE Government run cloud servers...wouldn't you?

That's pretty much what they're saying, elaborating on the whys, in case some bean counter attacks the government for not doing it as cheap as possible.

Re:How about no?

[hoppo]

That's where "federal" has become quite a misnomer. This is becoming more and more a national government.

Re:How about no?

[hoppo]

Politicians are corrupt. This is not new. It is the reason this country was founded on the notion that government should be granted very limited power. Humans are imperfect. The original design of our system of government was based on accepting that imperfection, and limiting the power that anyone can wield.

Re:How about no?

[__aaltlg1547]

This view bleeds over from how the government uses the radio spectrum. On the channels they use, they have priority access and all other must wait for them because it's (theoretically) public safety. But the same doesn't hold true for any and all data storage. Cloud data storage is a convenience, not for critical data. They need to be reeducated if they think they can use the cloud for mission critical data they need immediate access to.

Re:How about no?

[MickyTheIdiot]

Which means that you can't let corporate leaders have power to change the laws at will through political contributions, either.

The right is paying way too little attention to the amount of power corporations wield. It's not just about politicians anymore.

Re:How about no?

[Darkness404]

Except for the fact that corporations:

A) Only have voluntary power/wealth

B) Must use the government to abuse its power

If you reduce the power that the government has, you eliminate corporate abuses because all corporate abuses need the government.

The difference between a megacorporation and the government are huge. Walmart does not force you to purchase its products or face imprisonment, but thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling the government can. You can choose never to support a megacorporation or any corporation if you so choose. For example, I don't buy Sony products because of their policies with DRM and rootkits and removing features (as in the PS3), that means Sony doesn't get a penny from me. On the other hand, there are numerous things that I don't agree with the US government with, yet they force me to pay taxes (essentially stealing) via the barrel of a gun.

Saying that corporations are dangerous is incorrect. Corporations are only dangerous with government power, reduce government power and you reduce any damage that corporations can do to nothing.

Re:How about no?

[BigSlowTarget]

All this talk about 'cyberwar' and what do they suggest? The cyber-warfare equivalent of putting air defenses in a hospital near the front. Even with proper SLAs, you paint a giant target on everyone around you.

What can we expect? Probably demanding that the hospital be armored and sealed up which will drive up costs for everyone without accomplishing what they intend.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

All this report says is that IF they are going to embrace the cloud then they will NEED that priority. All it means is they will probably continue to not depend on the cloud, and rather build stuff out that they know they have priority too because it is there. No need to get angry at the Feds.

Re:How about no?

[hoppo]

It's more about us. We have consistently abdicated our powers for relatively small payouts. A little social safety net here, some security theater there. Every time we clamor for government to intrude into some new area, we empower politicians at our expense. If politicians hadn't been handed unheard-of power over the past 80 years, what exactly would corporations be buying with their campaign donations? We like to act as if we have been wronged, when in reality we have done it to ourselves.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

A tiger in a cage is still a tiger.

Re:How about no?

[rickb928]

The single most important reason for our Federal government to advocate public cloud computing isnot about emergency resources or any such performance features.

It's about surveillance. In the cloud, they only need to deal with the provider, and have access to everything - warrants not necessary. My corporate server is behind a firewall that offers at least minimal resistance. My home server is even more difficult, not because it's any more well secured, but because the government can't so easily coerce the vendor to grant them a back door. No, my home server uses no Microsof or Cisco products at all.

We are not far from having the fight over real privacy and government intrusion. And this Administration, despite its initial promises to be transparent, open, and ethical, has continued the progress of other Administrations into our private information, in all forms.

This is more serious than most of us think. Corporations marshalling our data can lead us into choices we would not otherwise make, deny us opportunities we would otherwise have, and cost us more than we should otherwise have to pay. Government is trying to assert itself into our lives in extrordinary ways, and will use this data to deal with us to our detriment. Healthcare will become a more constrained resource with a single-government-payer system, and the more data they have on us, the better they can make decisions to manage that resource. And that will NOT improve our health. It will only reduce costs.

Where I come from, reducing the cost of something is easily achieved by reducing the quantity or quality of it.

Denying the government private data it shoudl not have is a two-edged sword. First, deny them the need - keep them out of your life as much as possible and practical. Second, challenge their collection of the data at every turn.

The public cloud is very attractive to those who want to see everything. It makes it easier. The debate about emergency services and whether they should be provisioned as dedicated resources is another issue entirely.

Re:How about no?

[rickb928]

Cheaper is not a variable in an emergency situaton, except to define the cause and ultimate cost. Being cheap on preparation will cause total costs to increase disproportionately to the up front costs of preparing adequately.

Example - shortchanging things such as drinking water and sanitation supplies can result in unnecessary deaths. I don't think we can arrive at an acceptable cost/benefit analysis for saving our mothers' lives in the aftermath of a hurricane jus because they couldn't get water to drink.

Cheaper is wrong in emergency planning. it is not the primary consideration.

Re:How about no?

[Darkness404]

So explain to me the harm that a corporation has in a free market.

What is the primary motivation for a corporation? To make money for their shareholders.

In a free market, how do corporations get money? From providing services and products.

Are you going to pay for services/products that do not improve your quality of life? No.

Therefore, if a corporation wants to make money (which is the entire point of a corporation) it must produce products/services that improve people's quality of life, otherwise it goes bankrupt. If you don't want to support a corporation, you don't have to. You can live your entire life without buying a Sony product, without buying anything from Wal-Mart, etc. If you live in the US though, you can't not fund the various wars and drone strikes without going to jail.

Corporations therefore must produce products that the public likes at a low enough cost to remain profitable.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Are you going to pay for services/products that do not improve your quality of life? No.

You are wrong. Most people will in fact do this. There is an economic science experiment that involves an auction of a $20 bill which will routinely and consistently sell for more than $25.

People make very poor economic decisions; the idea of a self regulating free market based on actors always doing what is in their best interest fails because the actors do not act in that way.

Re:How about no?

[sam_handelman]

The pressure to do this is NOT coming from the federal government, it's coming from the companies that sell the cloud services!

  So instead of having the federal government just maintain an emergency backup infrastructure itself, these private companies (Amazon etc.) WANT the federal government to buy electronic services from them! And the feds come back and say, "well, in order to make that workable we'd need guaranteed access in an emergency and bleah-de-bleah." Privatization of emergency services is an unmitigated disaster and we just shouldn't do it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/aug/30/comment.hurricanekatrina

  The obvious solution is: How about No? But it's the federal government that needs to say that to the cloud-computing vendors, not the other way around!

Re:How about no?

[TheSpoom]

If you reduce the power that the government has, you eliminate corporate abuses because all corporate abuses need the government.

This is an unfounded assertion. A corporation can screw you over without involving the government at all.

Are you next going to state that without the government, the mortgage crisis would not have happened? I argue it would have been much, much worse, and the people involved would likely now still be homeless.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an utter load of pro-corp crap. First reason:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency

Second reason: without regulation, you have circa-1900 America - 16 hour workdays, minimal pay, zero safety controls and child labor.

A balance of business and government is needed, as either extreme leads to abuses that are not in the best interests of folk like you or I.

Re:How about no?

[jellomizer]

We come from the government trust us... We are the best of the best...

Having done work with the Government, it puts my mind to ease about all the conspiracy theories out there. These people think they are Top Minds, while they are the biggest idiots out there. I doubt they would be able to handle any of those Conspiracies out there.

Re:How about no?

[moeinvt]

"you can't let corporate leaders have power to change the laws at will through political contributions, either."

Corporate leaders cannot change a damned thing through "political contributions"! Only elected officials have the power to make and enact laws. If they change laws to serve the corporations instead of the people, it's a problem with GOVERNMENT.

The point is that if government is small and their power is strictly limited (as it should be!) then it doesn't really matter how evil and corrupt a certain group of politicians become because they can do minimal damage.

The left refuses to accept the fact that power is an inherently corrupting influence. Strip the politicians of the power and the corruption (and resulting damage) diminishes. Big powerful government is a failed institution. A group of 536 people who can confiscate $2.2T per year, borrow another $1.6T per year and enact sweeping laws that affect the lives of 330 million people will ALWAYS be corrupt, and the damage they can cause is incalculable.

Re:How about no?

[moeinvt]

". A corporation can screw you over without involving the government at all."

Sure, they can dump toxic waste in your back yard, but only government can absolve the corporation, its owners and its employees of liability (a tort) for doing so.

"Are you next going to state that without the government, the mortgage crisis would not have happened?"

Without the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (creatures of government) the mortgage crisis would not have happened. Without TARP, HAMP, HAMA, AIG bailout, and trillions in secret Federal Reserve life support, the banks would have been forced to accept the consequences of their own actions, and the damage could have been repaired.

"people involved would likely now still be homeless."

Without the government there would be no more underwater borrowers (certainly not 11 million) and fewer foreclosures. Bankruptcy = sell your assets to pay your creditors. This cleanses that "bad debt" from the system because assets reset to market value (i.e. nobody buys an underwater mortgage asset at full value.)

Re:How about no?

[moeinvt]

I don't understand how Blackwater(whatever) and Pinkerton refute any arguments made by the parent. They can cause harm, as can any business or individual, but only government can grant them free license to break the law and commit atrocities with full legal immunity. Not to mention the fact that these companies largely exist by fulfilling government contracts.

"without regulation, you have circa-1900 America - 16 hour workdays, minimal pay, zero safety controls and child labor."

Plus a thriving industrial economy, massive growth in both productivity and real wages and a blossoming organized labor movement dealing with the abuses you describe. Not to mention the fact that millions of migrants were coming into the country to take advantage of the opportunities in the industrial economy.

No age was a Utopia, we need a radical shift of resources away from government to achieve the balance you describe. It shouldn't cost $3.8T to enforce labor, safety and environmental laws.

Re:How about no?

[Dishevel]

See here is the issue. I do not like defending the banks. They are full of shit and feel entitled to being saved.
Fuck them.
OTOH.
What happens when the banks loan money mostly to the people it believes can pay them back?
Well. What did happen was that the government decided that poor people need a leg up. That not enough of them were getting loans. The government MANDATED that loans be less restrictive. This would not have been a problem. The banks that listened to the government would are some point fail and new banks would come up and the mandates would be removed.
In steps the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
When did we think that telling people that it did not matter if one bank is safer with their money than another bank because "we got your back", Was a good idea?
Really? Removing safety of depositors funds as something that you can compete on against other banks is good?
Not only was that a horrible idea for that reason alone. It is a horrible idea because without FDIC there would be some type of market for a fully non governmental private insurance. You bet that a private company would require much better accountability for its banking members. After all if a back with their sticker fails they are out a shitload of cash. Not only that but it would hurt their reputation.
When you have FDIC and mandate that loans be increased you are going to have major issues.
Again. Most of the banks we have now are fucking tools that needed to fail. BUT.
Less would have needed to fail without the mandate and FDIC, and the failed ones would have rightly failed without the bailout.

Re:How about no?

[TubeSteak]

Saying that corporations are dangerous is incorrect. Corporations are only dangerous with government power, reduce government power and you reduce any damage that corporations can do to nothing.

I'm sorry Darkness404, but you hold an extremely flawed view of the world.

So explain to me the harm that a corporation has in a free market.

That's easy, just look at a time in history when the USA had a truly free market, with barely any government interference.
Corporations were polluting, abusing their employees, hiring children to work 12 hour shifts, not providing a safe working environment, etc etc etc.
None of this should be news to you. Hell, black lung disease is making a comeback in coal mining country.
Why? Because there's no enforcement of regulation and it's cheaper for the mining corp to not fix their safety equipment.

I suspect the problem with your worldview is that it conflates free markets with competitive markets.
History shows us that these are not the same thing.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

You were doing so good...until you started in on the taxes bit. Go back to Montana.

Re:How about no?

[ultranova]

What about private companies that run CRITICAL infrastructure, like ISP data centers?

What about them? If you give your CRITICAL infrastructure to be run by someone else, then you are a moron. This obviously goes even more strongly for actually critical emergency response functions where outages will cost lives rather than mere money.

Re:How about no?

[Hatta]

A) Only have voluntary power/wealth

Yes, because no one has ever been wronged by a corporation that they don't do business with.

B) Must use the government to abuse its power

Do criminals require the government to abuse their power? Are you claiming that corporations cannot be criminal? Why don't we just deregulate the murder industry then, and let the invisible hand sort everything out?

Corporations are only dangerous with government power, reduce government power and you reduce any damage that corporations can do to nothing.

Reduce government power and corporate power rushes in to fill that void. That's exactly what we've seen with the past 30 years of deregulation.

How stupid can you people be?

Re:How about no?

[Hatta]

So explain to me the harm that a corporation has in a free market.

The harm that a corporation has in a free market is to use its size to commit anticompetetive acts that make the market no longer free.

Re:How about no?

[Hatta]

Sure, they can dump toxic waste in your back yard, but only government can absolve the corporation, its owners and its employees of liability (a tort) for doing so.

By the same token, only the government can hold the corporation accountable.

Without the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (creatures of government) the mortgage crisis would not have happened. Without TARP, HAMP, HAMA, AIG bailout, and trillions in secret Federal Reserve life support, the banks would have been forced to accept the consequences of their own actions, and the damage could have been repaired.

Without government regulation of the financial industries, we would have had a crash far sooner. The 20th century from the Great Depression onwards was a time of remarkable calm. We only saw a real depression after financial deregulation.

Without the government there would be no more underwater borrowers (certainly not 11 million) and fewer foreclosures

Most of the fraudlent stated income loans were made by private banks who knew they were 90% fraudulent, and when they were informed as much by the FBI they *increased* the amount of stated income loans they made. Your statement bears no relationship to reality.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

So explain to me the harm that a corporation has in a free market.
 

Free markets do not efficiently price in externalities.

Re:How about no?

[ultranova]

The point is that if government is small and their power is strictly limited (as it should be!) then it doesn't really matter how evil and corrupt a certain group of politicians become because they can do minimal damage.

Limited by whom? Stop using the passive and name the entity that will stop the government from simply assuming more power yet fails to use dictatorial power itself. A civic-minded populace can do it, sure, but it also tends to extend the role of the government to help further various agendas, resulting in Nordic welfare countries at best and the corrupt American mess at worst.

Also, in your model, who will build all the infrastructure that's enormously important to the society but can take a decade or more to begin turning a profit? The free market is notoriously bad at long-term planning. For that matter, who will force the re-internalization of externalities (such as pollution controls), without which the free market gets twisted in an outright psychotic manner (whoever cares the least makes the most profit)? A strictly limited government cannot do either of these, nor can it deal with whatever future issues come up unless its scope can extend (in which case it will extend right back to where it's now).

The left refuses to accept the fact that power is an inherently corrupting influence. Strip the politicians of the power and the corruption (and resulting damage) diminishes. Big powerful government is a failed institution.

The right refuses to accept the fact that power cannot be destroyed, just shifted around. Strip the politicians of the power and the wealthy will wield it directly, like they did in the past. Big powerful government is the only institution standing between us and feudalism.

And then there's the assholes on both sides who simply want power for themselves and advance whatever agenda they think will get it.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Libertarian-land, there is no need for anyone to be 'absolved' of anything because there is no regulation or government to hold corporations accountable for anything.

The crisis was caused by financial deregulation, not by the evil government

Re:How about no?

[niftymitch]

This article is just anti-government spin and alarmism. It is government policy to move as much computation as possible into the *public* cloud. ......clip-snip......

This move is premature and ill founded if the reaction to it is a law to conscript the people
and seize the resources.

In colonial times there was an issue where troops would seize homes, businesses,
stables, goods and more... The constitution has addressed this via amendments.

3rd Prohibits the forced quartering of soldiers out of war time..
4th Prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets out requirements for search warrants based on probable cause

In this case the hidden conscription may not be covered by the 1918, the Supreme Court ruling
that the World War I draft did not violate the United States Constitution in the Selective Draft Law Cases
mumble, mumble....

This issue is a massive tangle and ill conceived at multiple levels.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

Without the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (creatures of government) the mortgage crisis would not have happened.

I disagree. It still would have happened, but it wouldn't have been as bad as it was without the Fed raising interests rates a few months after Greenspan encouraged everyone to buy Option-ARM mortgages (to name one of their bad decisions). The mortgage crisis was really a perfect storm of deregulation, fraud, hubris and greed. Had AIG not been selling un-funded CDS's with it's left hand, while loaning out it's AAA securities to investment banks and investing the cash collateral in junk (but AAA rated) mortgage back securities with it's right hand, Goldman Sachs wouldn't have been able to hold a metaphoric gun to the head of the country and force the Fed to pump billions into that sinking ship (just so they could pay back GS, Societe Generale, DeutcheBank and the rest).

Further reading:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/25/aig-treasury-fed-business-wall-street-bailout.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mailbag-aig-parking-meters-and-being-a-crappy-husband-20110214

Without TARP, HAMP, HAMA, AIG bailout, and trillions in secret Federal Reserve life support, the banks would have been forced to accept the consequences of their own actions, and the damage could have been repaired.

I wouldn't say the damage could have been repaired. In fact, an argument could be made that the short term (i.e. 0-10 years) effects would have been much worse. However, by not removing the moral hazard from the equation, Congress and the Fed insured that something like this will happen again. As long as there are no criminal or financial penalties for people making bad bets or engaging in fraudulent behavior, you are guaranteed to see that behavior repeat.

Re:How about no?

[Attila Dimedici]

If the government does not back the corporation up, it will in the long run fail to maintain control of the market. The exception of course being where the corporation is allowed to take over a basic government function, the use of force.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the government does not back the corporation up, it will in the long run fail to maintain control of the market. The exception of course being where the corporation is allowed to take over a basic government function, the use of force.

Is organized crime backed by the government?

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

Free markets do not have externalities. It takes a government to allow for such concepts as 'externalities', for example when a company starts drilling for oil on some public property, this means that the company didn't actually get into the agreement with the free market over this drilling, instead the company somehow received an OK from gov't to drill there (and it also got some form of protection and likely fake insurance and limitation of liability from gov't).

Free market means that there is no gov't involvement in business at all, but this also means that there should be no business done on property that is not within the rules of the free market, so only private property can be mined or used by any business for any purpose.

Once the property is in the hands of a gov't, this skews the pricing.

The pricing is what free market does and there are no externalities but what a gov't makes.

If gov't holds an asset it should dispose of it and allow free market to use it, so the asset should be liquidated via an auction for example and the proceeds should be used to offset gov't taxation.

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

I left a journal entry on the ACA ruling fiasco and I use the example of what the 16th amendment is actually about and how it is used by the federal gov't. Personal income taxes are unconstitutional and are collected unconstitutionally against the decisions by SCOTUS.

Re:How about no?

[lightknight]

Actually, I like the idea.

See, I've been charting cloud outages. If they push everything onto the cloud, no matter what the cloud operator tells them about 99.99999% up-time, they'll get hit, and will have downsized / pissed off their home IT to the point that nothing will ever work right again.

Re:How about no?

[lightknight]

Indeed. And while they're at it, have them rewrite their websites to take advantage of this year's secure web programming language -> PHP. Then have them rewrite their apps in C or C++, for speed / security reasons.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

Free markets do not have externalities

Of course they do.

A factory or hog farm opens upwind from your house. The air pollution (either something like sulfur dioxide or simply the smell of pig shit) drifts on the wind. It can cost you in the form of increased health costs (e.g. asthma is more prevalent along the I-710 corridor) or from depressed resale value of your house.

A private nuclear power opens upriver from a fishing town. The heat released into the river by the plant decreases fish count, leading to lower catches by the fishermen and thus decreased revenues.

In each of these examples, a private company is imposing a cost on other parties. This cost is not borne by the factory/farm/plant, and thus is not reflected in their price level. The cost imposed on the 2nd party exists regardless of the presence or lack thereof of a government. Government is necessary in cases such as these so that the cost of the negative externality is imposed upon the firm that is causing it.

Note that there can also be positive externalities. For example, if my neighbor remodels his house and cleans up the yard, putting in some new shrubs and overall making it look really nice, it can have a positive impact on my property value. I don't contribute anything to the cost of the improvement, yet I reap some of the reward.

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

No they don't.

Should a factory be throwing their pollution my way, I immediately have a claim against that company in the free market.

Of-course gov't prevents the claims, it limits liability, the BP spill is a prime example where gov't limited liability of the company not just personally to the owners and management, but they limited the liability of a spill to 75 Million USD per incident.

A free market is not an anarchy, it requires strong protection of actual few laws that must exist in order for the system to work, and one of those protections is property rights, and I am NOT saying that gov't must protect one individual against another or one individual against a business.

I am saying that gov't shouldn't be protecting a business or an individual against liability claims, and all of a sudden there is no externalities because all such things are simply conflicts between different property owners.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't.

Should a factory be throwing their pollution my way, I immediately have a claim against that company in the free market.

Not if there is no court system in which to sue.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

No they don't.

Should a factory be throwing their pollution my way, I immediately have a claim against that company in the free market.

You have a pretty strange definition of "free market." To you, it would seem, a free market is one in which the government institutes a legal framework for tort settlement. I would argue that in a completely free market, your only recourse against the upwind polluter would be direct negotiation with the other party - either through words or bullets. In a completely free market, there would be no government telling you and the polluter that you had to settle your dispute in the government's courtroom.

In short, by establishing as system of tort law, the government is pricing the externalities back into the market. With tort law, the firm doing the polluting will now bear (some of) the cost of the pollution as they are sued by the injured parties. (Another way to price the externalities back in would be to institute pollution regulations, for example forcing them to clean their waste water before releasing it.)

it requires strong protection of actual few laws that must exist in order for the system to work, and one of those protections is property rights,

As soon as you introduce laws into the market, the market is not completely free. Each law, starting with the first, makes the market less free.

A completely free market does not price in externalities (which, again, exist whether or not there is a government enforcing contracts). If the government steps in to enforce contracts, pollution regulations, etc., then the cost of the externalities can be borne by those causing them.

Re:How about no?

[hoppo]

Limited by whom? Stop using the passive and name the entity that will stop the government from simply assuming more power yet fails to use dictatorial power itself. A civic-minded populace can do it, sure, but it also tends to extend the role of the government to help further various agendas, resulting in Nordic welfare countries at best and the corrupt American mess at worst.

That's a bit cynical and narrow. Prior to the destruction of federalism in this country, sovereign states were capable of limiting federal powers, and the courts tended to err on the side of the people, rather than the legislature, when it came to adjudicating the constitutionality of laws. That was all turned on its ear during the FDR administration, with Wickard v. Filburn being one of the more egregious examples.

Also, in your model, who will build all the infrastructure that's enormously important to the society but can take a decade or more to begin turning a profit? The free market is notoriously bad at long-term planning. For that matter, who will force the re-internalization of externalities (such as pollution controls), without which the free market gets twisted in an outright psychotic manner (whoever cares the least makes the most profit)? A strictly limited government cannot do either of these, nor can it deal with whatever future issues come up unless its scope can extend (in which case it will extend right back to where it's now).

Why is it that every big-government proponent equates "limited government" with "nonexistent government." You will be hard-pressed to find anyone, aside from a libertarian who is so pure that he could be described as an anarchist, that would dispute that government has legitimate roles, your aforementioned examples among them. This is a common straw man, and it does nothing to bolster your point.

The right refuses to accept the fact that power cannot be destroyed, just shifted around. Strip the politicians of the power and the wealthy will wield it directly, like they did in the past. Big powerful government is the only institution standing between us and feudalism.

This is simply false. The US government, as originally designed, was unique in that it offered a way out of feudalism. It is only through government fiat that the wealthy could wield any power at all. They are inoculated from liability thanks to corporate law. Regulation and taxation has put up barriers to entry in nearly every market. Henry Ford was able to start his automobile company as a middle class worker. Today, with the exception of building out a web product like Twitter or Facebook (expect that particular area of opportunity to close once the US sees fit to slam the Internet with regulations), that notion is all but dead. To emulate Ford, one would have to navigate hundreds or more regulations, and submit permit after permit, just to get off the ground, and if he would manage some meager successes, existing corporations in that market would wield the most esoteric of rules like a cudgel in the court system, until he was pounded out of business. We have a system of megacorporate hegemony, enforced by US law, under which most of the people in this country serve as worker drones. This is simply modern feudalism. The lords are found in the Fortune 100, they carry water for their king in the US government, and their employees are serfs.

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

To you, it would seem, a free market is one in which the government institutes a legal framework for tort settlement

- no, I did not say that, sorry if I somehow made you believe that it is what I meant because I didn't.

In a free market government isn't involved in private dealings, it is not involved in business it is not involved in money, it is not involved in labour, it is not involved in interest rates and it is not involved in trade and it does not have to be involved in contract or civil law either, I would prefer that it wasn't involved in that at all, because if gov't is involved in this, eventually it will become corrupt.

What I am saying is that gov't shouldn't be limiting liability, it shouldn't be offering protections to some people against other people in business, in money, in trade in any commercial interests. Of-course gov't shouldn't be creating a welfare state either, a welfare state is destruction of free market in itself.

As soon as you introduce laws into the market, the market is not completely free. Each law, starting with the first, makes the market less free.

- yeah, you should read my comments on rights, because you are not understanding what I am talking about.

Protection of private property rights means protection of private property against government abuse, against government theft, confiscation, ceasing and taxation of private property.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you going to pay for services/products that do not improve your quality of life? No.

You're right. I don't pay corporations if they don't give me something that improves my life

Furthermore, if they DO improve my life, I will pay them, and I won't STOP paying corporations even if you tell me they're operating only thanks to governments backing them up in a not-so-free controlled market.

So what's the harm of corporations in a controlled market? They're still providing things that people want, improving their lives, enough to keep them (and the government backing them) going.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

In a free market government isn't involved in private dealings, it is not involved in business it is not involved in money, it is not involved in labour, it is not involved in interest rates and it is not involved in trade and it does not have to be involved in contract or civil law either, I would prefer that it wasn't involved in that at all, because if gov't is involved in this, eventually it will become corrupt.

The argument about corruption is an interesting one and a valid topic, but a bit outside the scope of this discussion. You say that you "prefer that [government] wasn't involved in [contract or civil law] at all." Yet you said before that "Should a factory be throwing their pollution my way, I immediately have a claim against that company in the free market." If not for the government instituting the tort framework, you wouldn't have a claim against the company.

If a free market is one with NO government involvement, then by definition you will not have any legal recourse against another party imposing externalities on you.

What I am saying is that gov't shouldn't be limiting liability, it shouldn't be offering protections to some people against other people in business, in money, in trade in any commercial interests.

The question of limiting liability is ancillary. I agree that to accurately cost externalities you can't limit liability on (for example) BP in the case of the Deepwater spill. In order for the true cost of the externality to be borne by the agent causing those costs (i.e. BP, Halliburton, etc.) you can't cap damages at some arbitrary number. But what you're not understanding is that under a "free" market, there would be no liability damages AT ALL. Without the government dictating that a company is liable for damages if they spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico, you can't sue for those damages.

Of-course gov't shouldn't be creating a welfare state either, a welfare state is destruction of free market in itself.

Well, inasmuch as a free market as you describe it is desirable, then you shouldn't have a social safety net (or "welfare state" as you call it). But it's pretty clear, even objectively speaking, that the free market you describe is not desirable. The free market you describe is one in which there is no government intervention, and therefore parties have no recourse (other than brute force or silver tongues) against other parties that injure them.

Protection of private property rights means protection of private property against government abuse, against government theft, confiscation, ceasing and taxation of private property.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, maybe it's the grammar. Can you rephrase that so it's more clear? "Protection of property rights" as ensconced in western law, does not mean protection only from the government. I would say it is primarily protection from others individuals (thus: tort law). The post you linked to even makes the point that a "right against being murdered" is meaningless to the state because the state can execute you per it's rules, whereas a private citizen can never (legally) execute you. Likewise, the government can deny you property "rights" through vehicles like eminent domain, but another individual can't force you to give up your property, even if they are compensating you at market value.

Anyways, we are far afield. The original point is that externalities exist, both in completely free markets (which pretty much don't and never existed), nor in quasi-free markets (such as we have in the US*). Government intervention in the market is necessary to account for these externalities and assign the costs as best it can. It's never going to be perfectly efficient, but it is better than the alternative, which is to ignore the externality altogether.

*There are a million things that make our current economy not very free, such as inequality of information, inequality of power to shape the rules, government intervention, fiat currency, etc. but for the sake of discussion let's not quibble over the degree of "quasi"-ness of market freedom. We'd type ourselves to death. ;)

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

Wrong. There is no need for a gov't to have a court system.

Re:How about no?

[Crosshair84]

See California during the Gold Rush years for examples of this, the US hadn't even set up a territorial government at that time. Absent a government, people will voluntarily construct a court system for the same reason they will construct shelter, because it is in their best interest to do so.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? You're a fucking idiot. Why don't pricks like you ever stop for one second and think just how much infrastructure in a developed nation is dependent on the goverrnment.

Come to think of it: It would be amusing to take it away and watch wussy like pudknockers like you try to survive.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose ignorance is bliss?

Yes, I will absolutely state that the mortgage crisis would not have happened without the government.
It was the government that FORCED banks to give loans to people that could not afford them.

When everyone and their dog has money available to buy a home, the price of homes goes up. This spirals, until collapse.

Left alone, a bank has no motivation to lend money to an individual with a high risk of defaulting.

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

The limited liability was part of a deal.

1) Gov't gets to tell them where to drill

2) They are not liable for the problems that result.

It's a bad deal all around, and none of it would have happened if they were just allowed to drill in the originally requested (and approved by the local state) locations.

Re:How about no?

[HArchH]

Right. The Feds place a lot more value on themselves than is merited. If my life was on the line the last people I'd want to have to depend on are the Feds. Give me a local fireman or rescue guy anytime.

Also, tell the idiot Feds to build their own cloud. What idiots would put what they think are life critical services on the public net? Have these idiots learned nothing from the constant hacks on government data and resources from individuals and other governments?

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97du1N7Znb0

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a combat Marine, and then a DoD employee (nuke submarines) for 30 years (total), I COULDN"T AGREE MORE !!!!!!!! If you haven't seen this phenomenon in action, you really are missing a depressingly great dog and (fucking) pony show .

Re:How about no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the very existence of "military for hire" negates the idea that ultimate power comes from government. A corporation can (and has in the past) pay a private company to perform an action that is akin to a government crackdown. This fully refutes the OP's idea that government is the sole evil and that we need to let corporations run things; given enough power they will be just as bad as a too-large government.

Beyond that, it appears we somewhat agree with each other in that a proper balance is needed; the chief disagreement is where that balance is found. I very much reject the notion that giving corporations full control would be any better than giving the government full control.

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

If a free market is one with NO government involvement, then by definition you will not have any legal recourse against another party imposing externalities on you.

- this is false, people set up their own criminal courts and their own system to handle crime and to handle contract law, you are simply looking at the only option that you know and believe that other options do not exist, that's false. EVEN in USA during the 'wild wild west' or really the 'gold rush' era, there were court systems set up without any gov't.

But what you're not understanding is that under a "free" market, there would be no liability damages AT ALL. Without the government dictating that a company is liable for damages if they spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico, you can't sue for those damages.

- this is a misunderstanding of private property.

Since people DO set up governments, what must be avoided is the gov't owning property, so all property must be private, in that case there are no externalities, every single situation has to price in liability costs.

If gov't does have 'public property' (nonsense of-course, there is no such thing), then gov't must not be authorised to allow companies to do business on public property.

No company should be able to do business on property that has no true owner. If a company wants to drill for oil, it must bid to buy that land or even that portion of the sea, whatever.

BTW., while the deep water permits were handed out, more regulations was enacted to prevent shallow water drilling, isn't that something?

This brings up your next point: yes, it is the most desirable system to have - free market without any gov't regulations upon individuals and businesses and without gov't setting rules for money or interest rates, etc. And of-course gov't shouldn't be in business of stealing money from some to hand out welfare checks to others (welfare, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, EI, etc.etc.etc.).

Private property rights are against gov't confiscating private property. Protecting property from other individuals is not something linked to the concept of 'rights', it's only about your ability to protect yourself and it may have to do with the criminal code.

Criminal code establishes the rules of behaviour and punishment in case an individual hurts another, but that's not a concept of a 'right'.

A right is a limit placed upon the collective and this right is of the individual against the collective, it's protection against the system. System can't be punished if it violates your life or property, so the criminal code and rules don't work there. Where there is the collective (gov't) there must be a concept of an individual right, or knowledge that the collective is unauthorised and it is illegal for the collective to abuse your individual rights.

People completely misunderstand this, they don't get it, and thus they buy into the fake concept that gov't can hand out rights by creating laws that force some group of individuals to be obligated to provide entitlements to other group of individuals.

Minimum wage is an entitlement and an obligation situation, it's not a right.

Re:How about no?

[KhabaLox]

- this is false, people set up their own criminal courts and their own system to handle crime and to handle contract law,

But that is creating the same distortion of the "free" market, you're just calling it something other than "government." The effect is the same.

Since people DO set up governments, what must be avoided is the gov't owning property, all property must be private, in that case there are no externalities, every single situation has to price in liability costs.

Do you understand what an externality is? It has nothing to do with public vs. private property. You can do something on your private property which imposed a cost on me. If you own a hog farm, and your pig shit stinks to high-heaven, you impose a cost on me. The smell of the pig-shit (and the corresponding decrease in my quality of life and lowering of my property value) is the externality. If there is a sufficiently robust tort system, then the non-free market prices that externality in. If there isn't (e.g. liability caps) then those externalities aren't (completely) priced in.

Additionally, even if there is a tort system in place, it is sometimes difficult to assign liability. For example, the 710 freeway corridor in Los Angeles has been shown to be a center of higher than normal asthma and other respiratory illnesses. A large amount of tractor trailer traffic use this highway to ship goods from the Port of Long Beach out to various locations. It is not feasible for residents to sue every individual trucking company (and private individuals), so this externality is not priced into the cost of shipping goods out of Long Beach. I believe in this particular case there are additional fees imposed on truckers to pick up goods at PoLB, so the government is trying to price in the cost of this externality (or put another way, they are trying to remove the externality), though there are obviously going to be difficulties with this strategy.

Let's take a step back. This is how the discussion started:
Darkness404: So explain to me the harm that a corporation has in a free market.
KhabaLox: Free markets do not efficiently price in externalities.
roman_mir: Free markets do not have externalities. It takes a government to allow for such concepts as 'externalities'

My point was that corporations (and individuals) can cause harm (i.e. impose costs on third parties) in a free market because the free market does not price in externalities. Your statement that "free markets do not have externalities" and that governments are required for "such concepts as externalities" is patently false. An externality is "a cost or benefit that is not transmitted through prices and is incurred by a party who was not involved as either a buyer or seller of the goods or services causing the cost or benefit." A government is not required for this to happen. In fact a government (or a similar market distorting agent) is (usually) required for the externality to be removed - that is, for that cost to be priced into the price of the good or service. (I say usually required because in theory if my neighbor chooses to re-paint his house and re-landscape his yard, thus raising my property value, I could choose to help him pay for that.)

A perfectly free market has externalities. A quasi-free market also has externalities, though it has less since some of those costs are priced in through, for example, torts.

Re:How about no?

[roman_mir]

But that is creating the same distortion of the "free" market, you're just calling it something other than "government." The effect is the same.

- not at all, it is a service, like all other services, it's not a government and there are competing courts as well as competing private security services, private insurance, etc.

Do you understand what an externality is? It has nothing to do with public vs. private property.

- I do, you don't.

The problem of externalities is created by gov't, when gov't limits liability to people artificially in any way, be it a 75Million USD liability cap on deep sea drilling or be it allowing a company to mine on this so called 'public property' (which a nonsense oxymoron, it's not property if there is no real owner).

Gov'ts have forever provided companies with ability to dump their garbage anywhere on the 'public property' and gov'ts even limited liabilities of companies and individuals to dump their garbage on private property.

Only strict private property laws remove the problem of externalities. Externalities only exist as a limitation of liability to an individual or a business, which means it shields the individual or a business from having to bear the costs (current or potential, so either gov't limits their liability for paying for their violation of private property now or in the future via fake gov't insurance, which is always a moral hazard).

If you own a hog farm, and your pig shit stinks to high-heaven, you impose a cost on me.

- yeah, and do you understand that if you are in business of hog farming, then you have various gov't imposed limitations as to how much damages you owe to private property owners around you?

If I own that farm and the shit stinks, you have a liability claim against me and the real reason why you can't exercise it is government. Via licenses, regulations, taxation, use of 'public' land, etc., the gov't tells you: FUCK OFF with your liability claims.

In a free market you DO have liability claims against my business of hog farming, in a slave market that is set up via gov't regulations, public property, laws, taxes, inflation, limitation of liability, you do not have anything, you have no property rights.

The property rights ended very abruptly with the IRS starting to collect income taxes illegally (you can see my SIG and follow that link, I explain the issue). Of-course all other laws, including, as an example the so called 'Civil Rights Act of 64', the part of that act that imposes an obligation on the business owners to provide entitlements to people who some of those business owners didn't want to provide them to, and all of that being enforced by the gov't law, that's another example.

The minimum wage law is another example. Any time the gov't tells one individual: you have to do business in a certain way on your property and under the threat of violence these are the conditions that you must do business under here, at that moment there are no private property rights anymore.

There are no private property rights once the gov't limits liability to any company's misdeeds. There are no property rights once gov't establishes monopoly on even basic things like utility businesses, etc.

The gov't has destroyed the concept of property rights, and there is no more important concept than that.

Your property starts with your body. A gov't that is big enough to tell you that you have no property rights in your business is the gov't that can tell you that you have no property rights to your body and thus to your organs.

Your property starts with your liver, kidneys, eyes, skin, etc. Those things belong to you because fundamentally they couldn't exist without you being present and providing for them.

But the property must extend beyond your body towards things that wouldn't have existed if you weren't present, so products and services that you provide that depend on your w

They have cash?

[tqft]

They can pay for first priority

Re:They have cash?

[JanneM]

They can pay for first priority.

They can, and should. I can see how access is critical, especially during events that may knock out parts of the infrastructure. Paying for the access is both fair and in spirit with the economic system they are working within.

Of course, if they do so, some people will immediately point to their cost structure, compare it to the price paid by a novelty item manufacturer for hte same resources (minus any guarantees) and promptly declare that govermnent is inept, corrupt and wasting money.

Re:They have cash?

[tqft]

Of course the government can either do it itself and be accused of being behind the time, wasting money on a depreciating asset and having over the top security requirements or;
has lost control of its IT infrastructure and is paying too much for the cloud services.

They aren't going to win.

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

And those people would generally be correct. Them feds do like to feel special, just go take a look at all those special shops catering especially to them. Sure, the government does have functions that are more important than others, and of course they'll pay for it. Also, the government is notoriously bad at getting good deals, so there's another reason they pay over the odds. And wastage? Not everything they do is really that important. Just look at Belgium: Having to limp along without a government for over a year turns out to've been a boon to the economy. Not to paint myself libertarianal or whatever, just noting that a lot of rulery and fuzzbutting is essentially unnecessary and can safely be done without. Yes, them feds do fulfull roles that are hard to do otherwise, and yes, there's a price tag. Yes, they're also full of themselves and inconsiderate with other people's money.

Re:They have cash?

[FudRucker]

no, they been spending themselves in to a deficit for decades, thats why the debt is 15+ trillion dollars and growing

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can pay for first priority

Of course they have cash. And if they don't, they can print some or levy a tax for some. Cash doesn't make an even playing field between government and the people, but Constitutional Law does.

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we are the government .. (when it comes to paying) .. the government paying more is us paying more .. or maybe too many people don't pay for government (with low to non existent tax rates for low income) .. maybe that's the problem ...

Re:They have cash?

[JanneM]

And those people would generally be correct. Them feds do like to feel special, just go take a look at all those special shops catering especially to them. Sure, the government does have functions that are more important than others, and of course they'll pay for it. Also, the government is notoriously bad at getting good deals, so there's another reason they pay over the odds. And wastage? Not everything they do is really that important. Just look at Belgium: Having to limp along without a government for over a year turns out to've been a boon to the economy. Not to paint myself libertarianal or whatever, just noting that a lot of rulery and fuzzbutting is essentially unnecessary and can safely be done without. Yes, them feds do fulfull roles that are hard to do otherwise, and yes, there's a price tag. Yes, they're also full of themselves and inconsiderate with other people's money.

I wrote three sentences. Three short, easy to understant sentences. Even that is too much for you to actually comprehend.

With enemies like this, who needs friends?

Re:They have cash?

[Darkness404]

Sure, and they should, but every dollar the government they either have it via force (taxes) or fraud (money printing). The government should be trying to reduce itself rather than growing.

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

if they are going to the cloud first, and not in a "burst" season (think tax time for the IRS). They most certainly are wasting money by not owning and managing their own infrastructure. Hint, these cloud providers are interested in making HANDSOME profits.

Re:They have cash?

[Americano]

Mmmm. Sounds like somebody's come up with a new way to transfer MORE wealth from individual taxpayers into corporate coffers!

If you're not a senator now, son, you have all the makings of a successful one!

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it backwards.

They've been failing to charge for their services into a deficit for...about a decade and a half, since Clinton managed to "balance" the budget.

All we'd have to do is reverse the tax cuts, and it'd solve itself.

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the interesting topic buried under all the political grandstanding in this discussion. Where is the economic formula to actually allow quality of service management and cost savings with "cloud" infrastructure?

It's not a very effective (cost saving) cloud if it's just a colo facility where each tenant directly funds their own reserved capacity which is sufficient to provide their needed SLA and never over-sold. Yet the ability to purchase a meaningful SLA is what the market requires if we're going to eliminate the "waste" of lots of app-sized infrastructure silos.

So far, a lot of the cloud cost-saving arguments seem to be a delusional shell game, where users pretend they've transferred risks to the cloud operator but they haven't actually purchased formal SLAs equivalent to their old dedicated infrastructure. Once you actually make it robust enough to have real SLAs, the costs are also back up to or exceeding the dedicated/leased/colo models. At this point, you are back to the convenience and accounting arguments like "turning CapEx into OpEx" but not really saving money over the long run (for any organization stable enough to have a long run, where costs can be amortized).

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you remember these ignorant statements when your 911 call doesn't' go through because some politician could line his pockets with the extra cash rather than paying for proper first priority access.

You guys just don't use your heads when you talk at all.

Re:They have cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, the 90's had a pretty notable surplus.

Re:They have cash?

[tqft]

Just because - use of amazon AWS to meet excess capacity setup
http://oduinn.com/blog/2012/07/11/releng-production-systems-go-hybrid-now-available-on-aws/
"As of Friday afternoon (10jul2012), RelEng started generating a small number of production builds and try builds on Amazon Web Services."
tl;dr Mozilla has an arrangement that when the queue on Moz hardware gets too long they call AWS to take up the slack

Pretty pics, notes, lessons, considerations (security 1st) all at the link

don't see why not.

[Nyder]

After all, the government and corporations are fuck buddies, giving them better access would be part of the deal.

How about this, the government makes a fucking cloud server, make sure it's up to the security they want, and open it up for the public to use, instead of relying on a corporation who only cares about making as much money as possible for the 1%ers.

Re:don't see why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you want them to spend my tax dollars so that you could freeload on the government run service? No thank you. You want it -- you pay for it.

Re:don't see why not.

[fluffythedestroyer]

Who would use it ? Me...hell no since I know the gov is taking care of it. No matter what I will do they will know. Encrypted data or not they still have that data and in time they will decrypt it since they got access to my data 100% of the time. With time, ressource and money they will be able to access it. At the same time what's stopping other corps to create their cloud beside the gov's cloud anyways. I rather stay with private corp cloud (non gov created) so that way I can trace the request to get info on my cloud data.

Re:don't see why not.

[MachineShedFred]

Or they could just run their own datacenter, with their own servers to perform necessary IT function. Like they already do today.

Re:don't see why not.

[Darkness404]

...And how do you think corporations make money (in a free market)? It is by providing a good service that people want to use. If they don't do that, they go out of business. I don't know about you but I don't pay for things that don't improve my standard of living.

Unless a corporation provides a good service, it makes no money. Therefore, it is in the corporation's best interest to create the best service possible so it can make the most money. It has the net result in a corporation creating a much better cloud at a much cheaper price than the government ever could dream of.

Re:don't see why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is just upset that the ISPs are demanding 'cuddle time' afterward.

Feds: We Need Priority Access [Your] Cloud [Data]

[FriendlyLurker]

> Feds: We Need Priority Access [Your] Cloud [Data]

Give them an inch,... now they are back for...

Why do they even need the cloud?

[ZorinLynx]

Why do they need the cloud? How is the cloud better than your OWN well connected servers?

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Dyinobal]

This is just another case of some government guy who doesn't really understanding tech and that cloud is just a marketting word thinking that it is some great new technology.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Magtheridon]

At least a small part of the reason is due to the fact government agencies are just now finally growing their web presence at a rapid pace as part of the open government initiatives. Figuring out at what scale they are going to be growing would be a huge pain over telling Amazon / Terremark (where large portions of current cloud infrastructure reside) "hey we need more processor/ram/storage". There are large amounts of thought, planning, and contract work that would have to be put into building a proper infrastructure. When I last dealt with real servers, they were running a bunch of solaris boxes that were barely usable, but technically had the specs they needed, so they weren't about to upgrade them or build new boxes.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[jythie]

Bureaucrats and politicians, accountants love made up number that show phantom savings..... I am sure their actual security planners and engineers are shitting bricks at the very idea of having critical government services hosted on shared machines of private companies during an emergency.

The irony here, of course, is the internet was originally developed to be a way for the government to stay up and running when there was an attack or major disaster. Now they are trying to use the internet to make themselves more vulnerable by depending on private companies.

If things are truely critical and need to be online when things go to pot, they should be on a government (military) hardened cluster of some type. Not some server farm where load balancers decide if you are more important then someone watching old episodes of I love Lucy. The two shouldn't even be in the same equation.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider floor plans, hazard listings utility plans etc. these are often needed by first responders in any of a number of situations. As the government tries to reduce cost by going to the cloud for many data systems access to the cloud becomes a priority. We too often pigeon hole the government into a label of black ops and clandestine activities, which is more often than not, not the case.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[sycodon]

Exactly. Any moron who puts critical government functions in "the cloud" ( a stupid marketing term for someone else's servers) should be fired.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... they may not need the cloud. They've established conditions, "if we were to use the cloud, we must have this." If "this" is not available, or cost prohibitive, then the cloud is not a good match for the government's needs.

This like me saying, "For me to buy a house, it has to be in good repair, within a half hour drive of my work and cost less than $400,000". Since no such house exists, I will not be buying one.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, from some of the things I have read, this is a case of some goverment guy who does understand tech but who comes from a particular background and pushes his preferred solution for everything. You know, when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

The guy who really got this rolling was Vivek Kundra.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[gtall]

Bingo! I see no reason to use the public clouds for federal work. The U.S. government is big enough to run their own clouds where they can set the priorities. In fact, it would probably be cheaper and more secure in the long run. Who among us would turn government security over to Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or any of the other commercial entities? Just the privacy issues alone are a full-employment program for lawyers.

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[synapse7]

Centralize data for easier review?

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[Anonymous Coward]

So they can improve their gameplay experience of that ol'popular game, I spy with my little eye...

Re:Why do they even need the cloud?

[AmberBlackCat]

Perhaps it's the "cloud service" providers who approached the government, and this is the government's response. Also, the government seems to love firing employees and replacing them with contractors. This would fit right in with their fetish for firing people.

Personally...

[JasoninKS]

Personally, I'd want to see their definition of "emergency" first. Other than that, I'd be fine with them getting priority access in an emergency situation. If an emergency hits, the NS/EP teams need that infrastructure to take care of the situation more than (for example) Amazon needing to get packages out the door.

Re:Personally...

[haystor]

It goes beyond their low threshold of what is an "emergency". It is also a matter of the government thinking they "need" to be first in line. There are limitless applications of the internet which may deserve higher priority. From reporting of the situation to keep the populace informed, routing food and water to those in need to just getting on with things if you're on the same cloud and not in the emergency area.

The government has no business demanding they can commandeer our paid for services at their discretion.

Re:Personally...

[Magtheridon]

Really depends on the agency to and the emergency at hand. For example, you may want the CDC to have priority access to resources during the zombie apocalypse, so that you can get recommendations on whether you have to kill the guy that got bitten, or if its only a problem if he dies of other causes.

Re:Personally...

[mcgrew]

They do need to be first in line. About fifteen years ago I took a class at a local college, and the instructor was in charge of the Illinois Secretary of State's mainframe. We all got a tour of the inside of the impressive thing. That state trooper pulling over that car needs computer access a hell of a lot more than you do, and my instructor proudly stated that they had zero downtime for five years. They have two natural gas generators in case of power outage (redundancies everywhere), that sort of thing.

If your town gets hit by a tsunami or tornado or earthquake, FEMA and your state emergency agency is going to need those computers. You probably won't.

Re:Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent! So in the event of a fire, you won't mind cooking a little longer since the government have no right to the public roads, which you paid for. They also have no right to the public airwaves to transmit radio communications, since they were also paid for by taxpayers or corporations.

Have fun living in that world.

Re:Personally...

[Americano]

There are limitless applications of the internet which may deserve higher priority.

Let's consider a natural disaster - say, a massive earthquake and tsunami hits just off the coast of San Francisco - not inconceivable, and we saw the devastation wrought by just such an event in Japan just a little over a year ago.

So, you've got entire towns wiped out, roads impassable, electricity, phone, water service completely offline, but let's imagine cell service is still largely intact in the area. Now, think back to the last time you were anywhere like a sports event or other place where thousands of people congregated all at once, and think about how shitty or non-existent cell phone service was because the service was simply overloaded.

So... who should have higher priority for access to that limited bandwidth in an emergency situation? You, to make dick jokes on Twitter, or a group of rescue and emergency management personnel trying to save lives and establish control in the affected area?

I'm pretty sure you can make a GREAT case for government agencies getting priority access during emergencies. Your twitter one-liners do not take precedence over someone else's life.

reporting of the situation to keep the populace informed

This is far better accomplished by press releases and news conferences delivered BY the people directing relief efforts than it is to look for #ZOMGEarthquake hashtags on twitter. Local reports can be *compelling* but they do little to help people understand the scope or scale of the event, they do little to help emergency responders understand what's happening, and frankly, "the populace's" understanding of the event - at least that portion of the populace not directly endangered by the event - is less urgent than finding and rescuing survivors. That's a great reason to give the responders priority access.

routing food and water to those in need

And who do you think is going to be doing this? Right, FEMA, and your state EMA. Not random people via twitter. So you just argued a second time that government should get priority access in emergency situations.

just getting on with things if you're on the same cloud and not in the emergency area.

Anybody who can say the following with a straight face and mean it is a sociopath: "I know that those people are dying over there, but I *really* need to get to youtube to watch a dancing cat video." If saving people's lives in the aftermath of a disaster requires them to knock youtube offline for a while, then tough shit, disconnect and go get some fresh air.

Re:Personally...

[Hatta]

Oh that's easy. There has been an official state of emergency in the US since 1995, continued by Bush, and continued by Obama. The US is in a permanent state of emergency, and any emergency powers must be considered permanent powers.

Re:Personally...

[Mal-2]

Actually, after a disaster of that magnitude I wouldn't expect cell service to work worth a damn either. Chances are, most of the organizing will be done by folks like me, with handheld 6m/2m/70cm band radios, and mobile (vehicle-mounted) stations for higher power and longer wavelengths. The handhelds and 2m/70 cm bands will get used for local organizing, 6m might link one town to the next, and 10m on down might be used to talk to relatively unaffected areas that can actually mobilize some resources.

Concierge service

[Anonymous Coward]

Need priority access? Install your own cloud using Echelon and successor assets. Leave the private sector alone. We have different standards than you and trying to shoehorn your requirements for mandatory access (which itself is a circular fiction) into the commercial world where access is purchased and thus entitled based on a little thing called the constitution,

I think any use by the Feds at any time where any force of law is used (takeover, warrant, warrantless) should be PAID FOR at 20x the normal rate in exchange for the priority they insist on. Firct class service costs more, same day platinum service is a large premium. Pay for it. You just print the money anyway.

JJ

Re:Concierge service

[sabs]

the commercial world where access is purchased and thus entitled based on a little thing called the constitution

That you actually believe this is frightening on levels I can't even begin to express. I mean, really. You think that stuff that's purchased somehow gives you entitlement to the Constitution? That shows such a massive miss-understanding of what the Constitution is and does that it's actually worry some that you have the ability to vote.

Re:Concierge service

[Anonymous Coward]

Property rights are assured by the constitution. The citizen is the sovereign not the government. Who's confused now?

BTW never, ever, RTFA. :)

Re:Concierge service

[sabs]

Property Rights are very specific, and the Government can take away any amount of your property they feel like, they just have to give you Due Process.
Eminent Domain
Taxation/Liens
Confiscation of Property
Fines

You'll find that the Constitution doesn't really say that just because you paid Money for it, it's all yours whinewhine! Really it says the opposite.
Not to mention, Cloud Services, you're not even BUYING anything. You're renting, with an incredibly obnoxious EULA holding you by the gonnads threatening to rip them off if you so much as cough in a way that displeases the Cloud Service Provider.

Here's an idea...

[SQL Error]

Don't use the cloud for national security and emergency response functions.

Problem solved.

Re:Here's an idea...

[MickyTheIdiot]

We are living in a culture where the entire political "debate" is revolving around the fallacy of false choices. If we were having a healthy debate both sides would be admitting that there are at least some areas where it is appropriate for government to be a healthy size and spend resources. Emergency management, in my humble opinion and setting all theories about FEMA set aside, is one of those areas.

It shouldn't be outsourced because you can't truly rely on a profit-based agency in a true emergency. The goal of the modern corporation is selfish and doesn't care if anyone else survives the emergency or not.

Re:Here's an idea...

[Bigby]

Not if you price it right. Associate a really high cost for each death.

Re:Here's an idea...

[micahraleigh]

Government does all its worst stuff in the name of "safety". The "Great Terror" during the French Revolution was run by the Committee of Public Safety. Any time I hear someone say "false choice" I stop listening to them ...

Re:Here's an idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you price it right. Associate a really high cost for each death.

That's a regulation or "death tax" which is still not a market solution. Most human lives have little value in the market (you can't trade them, ergo the price is zero).

It's doubtful that any company would willingly shoulder a death tax (too much risk unless it's only a slap on the wrist). In all likelihood, the service will go unfulfilled and the government will have to provide it by default. That is, until the death tax is repealed to make the role more appealing since only the free market provides acceptable solutions. Ultimately, this provides an excellent way to siphon money out of people's pockets, without them having a choice, into private coffers in exchange for substandard or non-existent service.

cloud in the government

[sageres]

I work for a government agency (not going to name the name), but there has been push for the last few years to put much of our processing and data storage in the public cloud.
How stupid. This type of stuff normally comes from the upper management whom the vendors happen to entertain on golf courses and parties every now and then (just like the vendors push any product there.) But the cloud is different. Somehow the jackets from MS, Google, IBM, HP and Oracle have execs everywhere up to the upper echelons convinced that it will save money on IT budget. By tying ourselves up into the cloud, we are allowing for 1. potential leak of information through public storage and 2. potential denial of availability to the information when such storage and/or processing center(s) become unavailable due to network outage, disasters, national emergency, etc.

Re:cloud in the government

[MickyTheIdiot]

It will save plenty of money until the system breaks down and the corps. involved don't give a shit that you're down.

They you'll spend all the saved money and more converting the infrastructure back to what is should of been in the first place.

The suits will look great in the short term and by the time the thing blows up they'll be long gone.

Re:cloud in the government

[oneiros27]

As I also work (as a contractor) for a agency (that I've mentioned before, if you really care) ...

I see it as being two things:

1. Lobbying. Just like the 'one card' fiasco (what, we issue cards for 5 years even if the person's got 2 years left on their contract? Because it's such a pain & expense to issue a card? Oh, and it can get them into other installations that they have no business going to?), it's all a matter of lobbyists selling 'solutions' to minor problems that end up having major repercussions that the high up decision makers don't seem to care about.
2. There's been a requirement for the past few years for agencies to reduce the number of 'data centers'. Unfortunately, they keep changing the definition of 'data center' until I think at this point a telco closet qualifies. (and unfortunately, I'm not exaggerating). So, the easiest reduction -- get rid of all of your servers, implications be damned.

And of course, we're getting all sorts of clouds now -- public cloud, public companies with specialized government clouds, agency clouds, departmental clouds and clusters, etc. And for the departmental one they're trying to get us to move over to, they can't tell us what the cost model is going to be. (other than we know it'll be cost / year, while our budget is built around infrequent hardware replacement costs + lower reoccurring sysadmin time)

Security

[sociocapitalist]

Why doesn't our wonderful government just outsource everything IT to India and all weapons manufacturing to China while they're at it?

I mean really...what are they thinking?

Re:Security

[MickyTheIdiot]

They aren't. We've managed to elect the biggest group of idiots to power in world history.

And it isn't just the Republicans either... so don't go there. The only people that can get on the ballot for any race are inept empty suits.

Me too.

[rodrigoandrade]

And I'm sure most people who are considering using the cloud for serious business will expect 99.999% uptime.

Granted, I don't get it right now from my ISP or my web hosting service, but they also don't try to sell me the world when they know they can't possibly deliver.

The article is 100% reasonable

[laird]

As is often the case, the headline is completely misleading. The federal government isn't demanding first priority to cloud resources.

They are saying that they can't move national security and emergency services into public clouds until the cloud providers can give them the guaranteed uptime that they have now with dedicated servers, so they're going to keep running those services on dedicated servers. This is worth talking about in that it's an exception to the general rule that the federal government is trying to move everything to cloud providers.

The article even notes that there are some specialized cloud providers (e.g. Terramark's Federal group) that offer a higher level SLA than the public cloud providers, specifically aimed at providing the kind of SLA required for national security and emergency services.

Please RTFA before flaming.

Re:The article is 100% reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Please RTFA before flaming.

If it weren't for your 4-digit UID I'd say "You must be new here"...

Re:The article is 100% reasonable

[dbitter1]

Please RTFA before flaming.

You must be new here...

Re:The article is 100% reasonable

[asylumx]

Agreed wholeheartedly. The headline reads more like "Feds want to be able to easily seize things that are stored on the cloud" than "Feds won't use cloud unless they can have priority access to their data"

Re:The article is 100% reasonable

[Requiem18th]

I was about to post the same. This is a very reasonable position. The Feds want to fully control "the cloud" before moving their resources to "the cloud".

In other words they are just like me! So obviously they would respect my attempts to control my own hardware right? Yeah right...

Internet Gov't Created

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet was originally developed by the gov't to create a redundant method of comm in the event of a nuclear strike.

Seems to me whether you like it or not that they have dibs.

GovernmentCloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Make your own cloud. The government is big enough that there should be an IT "office" similar to the FBI/CIA/NSA/whatever, that all they do is host a government "cloud", which the other agencies can buy from. Make them responsible for supplying everything from the CPU time to the toner for the printers.

Ambulances on public roads

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not decided how wise this metaphor is. Perhaps it would be better to use the arrangement that some companies is on a list that comes into effect in emergency situations as an example. Well, you decide. But, anyway. This is not the worst idea I read about. But, the question remains, what about other governments. Is the US preparedness more important then any other governments needs? Perhaps there needs to be UN treaties governing Internet priority traffic. This might be a long debate. Perhaps we need to rethink the whole Internet. I'm thinking about some algorithm that sorts out priorities. What if we applied the same algorithm on investments? Isac Asmiov has some rules that could be used for this. It's called the rules of robotic. I'm way ahead of most of you now. I'm sorry about that. But, some of you might guess what I'm talking about. If we add some mechanism about preservation of price-discovery mechanisms as well as following of those we might move the human race forward to a better world.

But, this goes beyond your head. Sadly, the politicians are not even close to understanding this. They are like laborers in the last millennium. They don't want to be replaced by robots. But, we'll get there. Just wait and see. Isn't technology marvelous?

Banks vs. Under Mattress

[retroworks]

GOV: "Ok, I can see the advantages of putting my savings in this "bank". But I want to have just as rapid and priority access to it as I do when I put it under my mattress, I shouldn't have to wait in line if there is a run on the bank." BANK: "Excuse me sir, I was trying to help this lady in front of you."

Solution

[digitalsolo]

I have a great idea for a solution.

What they could do is take the cloud resources and "bottle them up" if you will, inside of some boxes that they own and manage. We'll call them "servers". Then, they could put these boxes in some secure facility that holds the data for them. We'll it a "data center".

Nah, that'd never work.

Re:Solution

[Skapare]

They don't want to PAY for it until they actually need it.

Re:Solution

[digitalsolo]

Well, really "they" aren't paying for anything, per se. "We" as in the population are paying for it. "They" are just figuring out where to apply our funding.

There are benefits to "cloud" computing and resources, but blindly throwing things into it is short sighted. There is a reason the company I work for has its own dark fiber and data centers. It's the best way to control your data when your data is critical and/or confidential.

Also, my apologies for missing a "call" in my second to last sentence above. I had not yet had any caffeine.

First question: how will the law be abused?

[characterZer0]

1) Get law passed giving government priority access to resources during emergency.
2) Declare emergency.
3) Force cloud providers to shut down services to organisations/people you do not like because you need their resources.
4) ???
5) Profit

It is not "censorship". It is "emergency resource allocation management".

Re:First question: how will the law be abused?

[rbrausse]

It is not "censorship". It is "Emergency Resource Allocation Management".

how fitting, the University of Bradford uses ERaM as acronym for the Ethnicity, Racism and the Media Programme...

Reading Comprehension

[belthize]

I know it's SOP to not read beyond the headline or if you really want to the first sentence but the blatant failure to grasp the nature of the article is a bit sad.

The article is not suggesting that the government should demand first priority to the cloud, the article is pointing out several reasons why certain government functions should not be moved to the cloud (god I cringe just typing that damn word, We need a weather article so it can be used in a reasonable context). One of those reasons is it would require the government to have priority access. It's no different than the government's requirement to shutdown parts of the interstate system during an emergency.

Re:Reading Comprehension

[belthize]

The interstate example is almost exactly wrong considering the funding source for its creation and original purpose so strike that.

NOT AGAIN

[the eric conspiracy]

The is just another is a long series of recent articles that have totally distorted the original news.

First it was EPICs reaction to Obama's executive order.

Then it was the Nature article on tree rings.

Now it's a complete distortion of an government study on use of distributed IT resources.

Slashdot has turned into the Fox equivalent of nerd news.

They need priority access?

[cvtan]

Then I want a pony.

Yes, but why? [Re:How about no?]

[Geoffrey.landis]

This article is just anti-government spin and alarmism. It is government policy to move as much computation as possible into the *public* cloud.

I've indeed heard that, but no one has ever explained to me why the federal government should want to use the (non-government) cloud.

The "cloud" makes sense for small and even medium sized businesses; they can make use of the economy of scale of the huge business computational power, which makes particular sense if you only intermittently need large computing capacity or requirements for storage, or, if you don't have good forecasts for how much computing you need, you can buy it as you go. But the government already has economy of scale, and should have good ideas for how much computing power they need. What advantage does using the cloud, and giving others physical possession of the computational equipment, have for them?

Re:Yes, but why? [Re:How about no?]

[donaldm]

The "cloud" makes sense for small and even medium sized businesses

In what way? Before any company considers using remote services which is really what the so called "Cloud" is (this is what it was called in the early 1980's) they have to determine if benefits verses cons are worth it. Each company whether small, medium or large has to consider security as a top priority. As an example consider a Law Firm, you would virtually want a guarantee written in blood that your data which may only be a Terra Byte. is going to be secure from prying eyes.

Emergenct???

[stanlyb]

Keeping in mind that USA is in emergency state since....since it's foundation, i wonder why they just don't say it this simple: "WE NEED ACCESS ALL THE TIME. PERIOD".
Oh, and it reminds of the fact that USA cannot have standing army, unless they have declared war to someone...

AWS GOV cloud

[Skapare]

AWS has a specific cloud area just for the government. Commercial users are not in there at all. Isn't that good enough?

Let's all donate

[Skapare]

We can let our computers connect into a central cloud management system and provide cloud service instances to the government when their national security is more important than us using computers ... the CROWD CLOUD. Yeah, that will work just fine.

Terrible Headline, Incredibly Misleading...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the report says is that the Government will not embrace cloud technologies for key security functions unless they have priority. This doesn't mean they are taking priority. It simply means they will continue to rely on their own networks and resources for key security functions. This makes sense.

Information superhighway redux?

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

Okay, the term has fallen into disrepute. But isn't the cloud just an extension or enhancement of the concept (pipe + storage space + online applications)? So why not a cloud service analogous to a country's road network?

Do they not realize what a cloud is?

[Viewsonic]

Cloud by its very definition is that it exists globally with multiple routes to redundant copies of the data should any location; or nation; "fail". Does the US government want its data housed on servers placed all over the world? The cloud cannot exist solely in a single country, or two, or even three.

Re:Do they not realize what a cloud is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud by very definition is nothing, it is a marketing buzzword.

Re:Do they not realize what a cloud is?

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems to be one of their concerns. Thanks for pointing it out to those who don't RTFA.

You'll do that anyway...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

For god's sake. If you need to crack a password to find the hidden atom bomb, just torture the bastard.

If they need assured priority...

[John Hasler]

Let them build their own "cloud". Siezing other people's property is not the way to guarantee uninterrupted access (assuming, of course, that that is what this is actually about).

That Gets Back To Their Definition Of "Emergency"

[Steve B]

A state trooper needs the description of a gunman recently seen in the area? OK.

A state trooper needs to get his quote of parking tickets filled ASAP? Not so much.

Dont want the government looking? Dont use cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its really that easy, if you dont want someone snooping then dont use cloud based services. It cant be any easier than that. Its just like if you want to have a private conversation at a crowded starbucks then you go outside where no one can hear, but if you dont want anyone to hear you dont openly have your conversation and then give other people there a scowling look because they are sitting 2 feet away from you and can overhear.

Besides, if your not doing anything illegal on cloud what exactly do you have to worry about? Do you think the government really cares if you share photos on it? Have your music library on it? A business does its payroll accounting on it? Or whatever? If they see that shit and its not illegal then youll just be one of a billion other things seen and forgotten. The only time they will pay attention to you is if youre on their radar for doing something bad and you dont get on that list for doing nothing. All of your information is already out there anyway.

All of this anti government hyperbole about them being modern day nazis, out to snoop and spy on you personally (when in reality they dont care about you but your arrogant and smug enough to think you matter) and take away all of our freedoms yada yada yada is all bullshit. If they want to look at cloud then let em, if you havent done anything wrong it wont matter.

You guys are really talented, you have managed to get your podeums balanced on the bandwagon and have it pulled by a high horse.

Is there any doubt....

[E_Ron.Eous]

That the federal government views the entire planet, including Americans as both expendable and the enemy?

All your cloud are belong to us!

[kawabago]

I want it I need it please please please can I have it?

No

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want, let the pass a law requiring cloud providers to have a front of the line auction for up to n% of the resources of the cloud. That's it. If in an emergency, they want to use the cloud, let them print up the money to pay the cloud provider for being first in line, and the action price is whatever the market sets. A bank doing a 100 billion transaction would probably outbid them, and get first crack at anything they need, or, maybe the say, naw, you go first, obviously, you need the resources more, since you want to pay more than we want to pay. In the end, the free market sets the price, and the person that uses the cloud, _pays_ the cloud provider that price to use the resources. This is called fair. This is called fair market. The price paid, is called the fair market price. Anything else is called, a man with a gun stealing from someone else that doesn't have a gun. Stealing is wrong. The cloud doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to the person that owns it. We are a nation of free people, and we need to step forward and tell the government, no, we object to you stealing from us. You have a method to take 100% of everything we earn, and 100% of everything we have. It is called taxation. It has been found to be without any limit, by the Supreme Court, that _is_ enough.

They already have it

[Anonymous Coward]

The defense Deparment already has priority. By public law they can designate a contract to have a Defense Priority rating which means that if you take a contract from them, you have to meet their schedule and if you have other jobs interfering with that, the Defense Department order takes precedence over any commercial order. That's even not in times of warfare or emergency situations, that's all the time. That also applies not just to the Defense department, but to DoD contractors who have a priority rated contract; the priority rating is a flowdown to second tier contractors, so if you're selling cloud services to Lockheed Martin building fighter jets, LM can also cut to the front of the line for service and locking out other customers. Having been a Buyer for a defense contractor, I've had to use the rating a few times when a supplier fell behind on my project to get them to prioritize my project ahead of all others. So all you guys crying out there about wanting access during an emergency; you're better off just discouraging them from using cloud services.

http://www.dtc.dla.mil/dsbusiness/Info/DPAS.htm

Women and children

[ThatsNotPudding]

(and bureaucrats) first!

The government needs cloud services...

[Anonymous Coward]

...like a mudskipper needs a walkman.

Re:The government needs cloud services...

[lightknight]

Why are you picking on mudskippers?

Please define emergency....

[niftymitch]

I can think of no cloud-based solution of any size
that qualifies as a critical resources during emergency
situations including war.

At least none that is not well served by a server resource in
a shipping container. i.e. generator, storage, display, mother boards.
Such a shipping container (20"box) could be transported
by air or truck and pre-positioned near and directly connected
to an ISP central network location.

One key problem is the network bandwidth and connectivity. In the
vast majority of situations connectivity would be lost so cloud solutions
make little or no sense. We saw this after 9/11 where a number of
folk assembled "Pringle can" links that moved data for weeks after
the buildings collapsed, severing services in the area.

Someone needs to clearly understand the modes of failure
and the needs. Critical resources should not be contracted
to a cloud because it is both hardware and people that are
being contracted. This legislation is in effect conscription
of those people and it is not clear that they are citizens subject
to conscription. It is also a tax on cloud providers that is
uncounted and not acknowledged.

I saw problems like this in the media after Katrina. Any senior officer and
most junior officers would note that the path of the storm was going
to cause a logistical nightmare as communications and transportation
into and out of New Orleans was washed away. The news failed
in their understanding of the damage over time aspects. They
were there with their portable satellite links broadcasting intermittent
images of the clear sky and intact levies. The mayor and the governor
acted on this and released national guard resources that once released
could not be recalled because the storm swept away roads and communication
resources needed to recall them. A military logistical expert would map
the damage of the storm much the same as the damage from sappers
and airborne troops dropped behind the FEBA to disrupt resupply and
communications. FEBA == forward edge of the battle area, not FEMA.

Re:Please define emergency....

[moeinvt]

That's the worst poem that I've ever read. ;-)

hold on a second!

[Gravis Zero]

Federal agencies must be assured priority and uninterrupted access to public cloud resources before fully embracing the technology for national security and emergency response IT functions

if this system is required for emergency functions then WHY THE FUCK IS IT "IN THE CLOUD"?!

government dictates the terms via Fannie Mae et co

[Anonymous Coward]

Without the government there would be no more underwater borrowers (certainly not 11 million) and fewer foreclosures

Most of the fraudlent stated income loans were made by private banks who knew they were 90% fraudulent, and when they were informed as much by the FBI they *increased* the amount of stated income loans they made. Your statement bears no relationship to reality.

It went like this: the banks did fraudulent loans because these loans would be ultimately sold to government-backed FNM (Fannie Mae), FMC (Freddie Mac) and GNMA (Ginnie Mae). These entities, although described as "not government-backed" in their papers, were in fact so as shown in 2008, and banks unloaded all that toxic MBSs (mortgage-backed securities) on to them. Without the ability to quickly unload the loans to the taxpayer in this fashion, the banks would have had to be a lot more careful about who they lend money to and for what collateral.

In fact, the entire snafu can be said to be due to the government's failure to require proper mortgage paperwork in the first place. Because FNM/FMC controlled the home mortgage market banks had to abide by their terms if they wanted to be able to unload the loans onto them, and despite that, the terms were quite weak. Which is quite apparent now, as you see it's a lot harder to get a loan - why, because those govt agencies have toughened their acceptance criteria since they've been burdened with most of the toxic stuff, and banks are forced to follow if they want to play.

You can see where the market is without government interference if you try to get a regular "commercial" loan. 20 to 25% down, interest rate is at a minimum 1% higher, qualifications more stringent etc. Because those loans can't be resold to governemnt and the banks would have to hold on to them. Under those conditions, people most likely to foreclose (that haven't been able to save for the downpayment, and would be additionally burdened with secondary loan at high rate) would not have been able to buy in the first place. Way different situation than the ridiculous 3% down with assistance that you could do with FHA.

Re:government dictates the terms via Fannie Mae et

[Hatta]

In fact, the entire snafu can be said to be due to the government's failure to require proper mortgage paperwork in the first place.

Exactly, the entire thing was due to bad regulation. The solution isn't no regulation, but good regulation.

Hey, Feds..

[Anonymous Coward]

Build your own fucking cloud.

wait.. its not an emergency now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is already involved in three official wars (Terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan) and probably more than a dozen unofficial ones. If this is not an emergency situation, I don't know what to think.

Re:government dictates the terms via Fannie Mae et

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes. Kind of.

Not requiring proper paperwork was only harmful because the government was already the sink for all those mortgages. Had the government not been in that business in the first place, that situation would never have arosen.

What you're saying is correct, but the problem is Wall St interferes with law making such that "good regulation" is never possible.

So for example, separating investment companies and banks would be a good thing. Except that during the bank bailout, all credit and investment firms were allowed to become "banks" so they can suck at the Fed teat.

Regulating leverage ratios and liquid capital reserves is good. Except the former was lifted and banks are allowed to count various non-liquid sources as "capital" via accounting tricks, lying on the former.

The main problem though, is that we have not allowed reckless behavior to be punished. Too big to fail should be too big to exist. Allowing the "too big to fail" otherwise means reckless banks can always count on government to bail them out, with NO downside, as long as they're big enough. While smaller banks operating by conservative rules will be unable to compete and be pushed out of the market.

Re:government dictates the terms via Fannie Mae et

[Hatta]

What you're saying is correct, but the problem is Wall St interferes with law making such that "good regulation" is never possible.

We had pretty good regulation for 70 years or so after the Great Depression. The temporary failure of leaders to keep a good policy doesn't mean we should give up. That's what the banks want you to do. Instead, we should fight harder for even stricter regulation.

The main problem though, is that we have not allowed reckless behavior to be punished. Too big to fail should be too big to exist

So who is going to enforce that if not for the government? Isn't the only other alternative to let these corporations grow on their own until they crash and take everyone else down with them?

What a silly article

[pease1]

That article is beneath any decent publication to run and certainly didn't deserve to be on /. As a manager of a Federal IT data center that is mission critical for emergency management as well as daily operations for important parts of the transportation/DoD infrastructure, the concept of putting my system in a commercial cloud as they talk about here is laughable at best. Anyone who remotely understands how we work will know the process we call FISMA. As my system goes through the process of a rearchitecture that will hopefully come on line in the 16/17 time frame, assuming the current administration stays in place, there will be pressure to push to the cloud. But our FISMA requirements will push the requirements process in a direction that will almost certainly result in only cloud systems built specifically for government applications meeting the requirements. I'm going to guess that when push comes to shove the cost of us using one of these high end government cloud systems will be far higher than our hosting and owning our own system. I will be amazed if we end up in the Amazon cloud.

Nat'l security and emergency response in the cloud

[MetaDragon]

There goes the country. Let's see...whatever did I do with my passport?

All my shit is protected:military-grade encryption

[John Holmes]

So fuck the feds and their lame-asses. Maybe anon should DDoS all federal agencies forever.