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US Government: You Don't Own Your Cloud Data So We Can Access It At Any Time
New submitter jest3r writes "On Tuesday the EFF filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties access to their property. Many businesses used Megaupload's cloud service to store and share files not related to piracy. The government is calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require individuals or small companies to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings just to get their own property back. Additionally, the government's argument that you lose all your property rights by storing your data on the cloud could apply to Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or Apple iCloud services as well (see page 4 of their filing)."
Anyone surprised?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Does this mean that my backups to Barracuda Networks cloud service are no longer mine? This would kill cloud services.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
If I let my friend borrow something, the Feds are allowed to come in his house and steal it, because he doesn't own it?
Nice move government you just destroyed pretty much all of the cloud computing industry.
Huzzah.
Does this mean that all of those copyrighted works I am hosting "in the cloud" are no longer the property of their respected copyright holders? I can see this being argued in all sorts of funny ways.
>Additionally, the government's argument that you lose all your property rights by storing your data on the cloud
Bullshit. I don't lose the rights to my property if they are in the temporary posession of a third party. If it was so, then nobody could rent anythiing ever or even check a coat.
Hurr.
--
BMO
At least with Drop box, even if the cloud goes down I still have all my local copies. Won't stop the feds from digging around my data, but at least I won't have to fight in court to get it back.
All of our BDR servers also run on a triplicate model - the original data, the data on the backup server, and a copy of the most critical data in the cloud just in case the building catches on fire.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
not sure why I'm surprised at the stupidity of this and how it impacts every cloud computing business. So long Amazon cloud service, Azure, Google, and any other service that claims protection in the cloud.
Most of my money is "stored" by my bank, backed by promissory notes which in turn are notionally backed by gold deposits stored in some other location that my bank doesn't know about. It's all in the cloud, and has been my entire life. Do I still have property rights over that?
Maybe that's what caused Sandy?
cloud storage is an easy target: it hosts data of many individuals, and is a single entity. Of course govt will want easy access to that, since that's a lot simpler than requesting access from each person separately.
And that is why I never wanted to use cloud storage. I didn't need it also, to be honest. I always prefer my personal servers that I manage myself, and can encrypt & backup at my own desire.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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If I leave a notebook (paper one) at a friends house, or at work, do I no longer own the data inside of it?
GPG and LUKS for the win!
Recursively placed truecrypt drives for your financial documents, cat pictures, and whatever else you REALLY don't want them to see.
Shouldn't the EFF argue that a cloud service is the equivalent of a bank's safe deposit box? Someone else holds your property on your behalf. For SDBs, the government needs a warrant...just like if your stuff was in the cloud.
The MPAA's members upload movies to "the cloud" all the time, so I guess their "property" rights are forfeited! Hooray!
Palm trees and 8
Does this mean that my backups to Barracuda Networks cloud service are no longer mine?
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Forget law. The physical reality of the thing is that by definition, any data you are keeping on devices controlled by someone else is never really yours. You just might be able to access it, and even that is never guaranteed.
Cloud backups are great as a cheap last offsite resort but are not the same as backups that you physically control. You should never have data you care about recovering on a cloud service that you do not also have in multiple copies on devices you own.
Any other notion is just fantasy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
for that copy only and that how the ISS gets movies for free.
If data on the "cloud" is not your own, is any data on a computer outside your property lines your own?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Any and all Federal Property guarded by a private company is not actually owned by the gov? Cool, I think I'm gonna get me a new ride.
Since most of my "money" is electronic funds in the cloud?
The courts established a long time ago that you don't have the same property rights under the 4th amendment when it's stored with a third party.
I've raised this issue whenever I hear that a legal office has outsourced their mail service (do they still have attorney-client privilege if the information has been 'shared' with the ISP?)
There are two issues -- (1) does it require a warrant and (2) do they have to notify you of the warrant (so that you can contest it) or only the party holding the information?
There was an article on the topic in the Journal of Consitutional Law a couple of years ago. One of the key things -- ECPA considers any email stored for 180 days can be obtained from an ISP without notifying the user. There was a case in 2008 that found that argued against it and the court agreed, but the case was overturned on other issues so the decision never stood as a precident. It has some interesting things to consider, such as the issues with using a cloud-based thing client without knowing it (in the example, a kid setting up a computer for his uncle), and losing their fourth amendment rights.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
In today's America, you don't own anything that the government doesn't want you to own.
Heck, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can come in and take your house if they feel like selling it to a developer for cheap.
But to make the Feds' job a little bit harder, I hope that everyone will use the Freedom Box once it is available.
And get a real, privacy-protecting VPN while they are still legal, rather than a fake with a catchy name.
By your logic the money we keep in the bank isn't ours either.
So THAT's why the price of HDDs and SSDs jumped up this morning.....
And no matter who wins the prize in the elections, we will all get screwed just as deep. Obamaloney has proven weak in the flesh and incapable of tearing down any of the human rights violations instituted by his predecessor. Romnesia, that sleazy corporate panderer, will do ANYTHING to please his big business buddies and masters.
But be happy! If anyone ends up pregnant from this institutionalized rape, it's God's will, like the senator said. Halleluja!!!
or, for that matter, the skulls in my safety deposit box...
Face it, the new US government doesn't care about rules and regulations anymore. They can pressure almost any country now to "cooperate" with them so they can change the laws of those countries, or just force them to give up any information they want on anyone. They can even pressure the government to send special forces to kidnap someone in their own country! (see Dotcom) Anyone going against them is called a terrorist or an enemy of the state. The word freedom has lost all its meaning, it's now just an excuse used by the ones in power to excuse their actions against their own citizens or anyone they feel threatened by. The worst part is that they now have too much power, and I don't see anyway to deviate from this ongoing abuse of laws. In video games there could be a "chosen one" that can around and change the world, but reality is darker than that. It just feels like this is going to get much worse in the next 10-20 years, I wonder how many "freedoms" we will have left then.
Way to steal one from the King George III
"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
When the governments of the USA and Iran are using the same playbook you shouldn't really be surprised by stuff like this.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property. Now the government can come and take it at will. Great logic there.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Dose it apply to http://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/
Welcome to the new totalitarian state of the "land of the free".
All you idiots who think you are free make me want to vomit.
1. Rent some cars.
2. Employ the same logic.
3. Profit!
Manager (as I hand him a handful of undesirable leftover parts): We expected you to return the car with a full tank of gas.
Me: I bet you expected your cloud-hosted customer data to be private too.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The government's argument isn't about inherent ownership in copies, but the impact of relevant contracts to the ownership interest. The line of argument isn't good news (and hasn't been adjudicated) but it is cause for cloud storage providers and users to closely examine how their contractual arrangements address the issue of whose property the cloud-stored copies are.
I try to own my own hardware and supply my own services.
The cost/maintenence is a factor that is maybe not for everyone, but it makes me appreciate it even more so when I hear shit like this happening.
I trust myself much more than any corporation, and if you don't, you definitely need your head read.
So money is no longer yours if it's stored in a bank?
So any software or data that is on the hardware I own those who created, other than myself, it lose their property rights?
So software patents and copyrights don't really exist?
I believe the term is "Non sequitur"
Hold it! The Government requires that all medical data be readily available if online (see HIPAA). If your data is stored on a cloud service and they shut it down, who is responsible if it isn't available? Oh that's right, the government is never responsible for anything it does...
Seriously, that's the argument they're making.
If we're supposed and allowed to forget the law, then I know a few great ways to improve the government.
thank you.
the tranport has NOTHING, NOTHING to do with your privacy and rights.
why link the two? this is playing into their trap!
"oh, but you stored it blah and it went over blah and it left your house ..."
so fucking what!
seriously - so what. and I wrapped it in a blue envelope and its 'we hate blue envelopes day' today so we get to keep it.
arbitrary reasons, repeated many times, does not make them have any more sense and reason.
yes, my data went over wires I don't own. SO FUCKING WHAT!
what's next: anything that's not kept in your hands 100% of the time is open to be taken away? where does this encroachment end?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
no on cares about your stuff as much as you do. And that does not change if you rename mainframes to "the cloud".
Never did think this was a good idea when I first heard the term "software as a service", now back with a vengence as "the cloud". Package a fart anyway you want, its still a fart.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
So anything the government has stored on external servers is no longer theirs either? Are they really ready to be held to this standard?
Nothing is ever "really" yours, since property is just an idea.
But I'd say that an encrypted blob (encrypted locally!) in a cloud service somewhere is more "yours" than an unencrypted blob in a hard drive in your home. Most people don't live in bunkers where you need more than a few tools to get into, but an encrypted blob requires you to disclose the passphrase (voluntarily or not).
Dilbert RSS feed
Have you never heard of a "trust" before? the govt is supposed to be working for us in trust. if you rent out your car is it no longer yours too? what about when you opperate your private car on the public roadways is your car free to all inspection without warrant?
Of course it isn't. The banks can keep you from your money any time they want. They've actually done it in the past. The only thing keeping them from just right out claiming your money is a fragile social contract...
storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
What you are arguing here is that we live in the state of anarchy? So the stuff I have in the bank safe-deposit box is not mine either because a 3rd party controls it? Because I think it is and access to it still requires a warrant.
I realize that government _could_ get access to things you do not physically control, but then they can also access data that you physically control, too. They just need a warrant, oddly enough.
Its not! The whole point of a bank is so that others can "use" "your" money (loans, etc.) You just can also use the same amount of other people's money equal to the amount of money you have in the bank.
But yeah, I know, that's just crazy talk...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Logic is sound. We don't necessarily own the money we place into banks. MF Global comes to mind. Furthermore, try to take out a large amount and see what happens. Either they won't have the cash on hand (call ahead to get your money!) or you're going to have some paperwork to fill out. To, you know, prove you're not funding terrorism or something. There are limits to what one can do with one's money after it's been deposited. Using a bank, one is essentially storing money for them to use as loans, investments, what-have-you. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, banks can be a good thing but to think that one has total control over their money once it's deposited? Wishful thinking. There will be at least some hoops/questions to answer when closing out an account, withdrawing large amounts. From personal experience, trying to be vague in the explanation of "why" doesn't work so well either.
What good is a backup if you are unable to restore it?
A variant of this theme has always been my problem with all these on-line backup services: in the small print, most (all?) of them seem to have no obligation if they decide to shut things down to give you even a reasonable opportunity to restore anything you need first. Whether they were closed down by their own choice or because of third party influence as in this case doesn't really matter, as the result for the innocent user is just as bad either way.
The common sense rule is the same as it always was: for anything important, try to depend only on people you can trust without needing to rely on any legal measures, or on systems under your direct control. In a lot of these cases, the best any contract can do is provide financial compensation, and even that won't be worth much if the other party has no assets to compensate you with.
Obviously most cloud services can't fall into either the trustworthy or the direct control category, which is why I think it's crazy that so many people and businesses rely on them for actually important things rather than mere convenience.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
Correct. Which is why anything of value is moved over said roads in guarded and/or armored transport.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property
You seem to be confusing law with reality.
The property, by law is still yours.
BUT you are no longer in control of it. The storage locker owner can access it at any time, as can any burglar.
Can you please try to see the difference? We are not talking about what is right. We are talking about WHAT IS, and hoe to prepare for that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My private clo... errr cluster
We are on route to have our Internet disconnected from the global Internet as a result of actions of the US legal system. Bye-bye, Silicon Valley and the entire global SaS business segment
Bank with paypal recently?
When you've done something wrong, then you own the data and are responsible for it. When you've done nothing wrong, you do not own your data and have no rights to it when it is taken as collateral damage. See, the government can always have it both ways if it wants.
By your logic the money we keep in the bank isn't ours either.
Sorry to go all Eliza on you, but what makes you think it is?
If there is a run on the bank, and you are not fast enough - you do not get your money. Simple as that.
You may get re-imbursed by FDIC, but that doesn't change what happened.
There is a vast difference between what is yours by law and what you can practically access. All I am saying is everyone should realize there is a difference and be prepared.
In the case of the server I have zero pity for anyone who kept data only on the servers that were seized. Yes it is there data, but they also had responsibility if that data was important to keep it somewhere they controlled.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Given our debt-based and loan-centric society, one could argue that the money you keep in the bank isn't even money.
But I'd say that an encrypted blob (encrypted locally!) in a cloud service somewhere is more "yours" than an unencrypted blob in a hard drive in your home.
I don't really follow that, all of that data is yours equally, encrypted or not, wherever it lives.
But the thing is, if all you have is that encrypted blob on the server you do not control, then someone else can prevent access to it. It may not be right to do so; that is irrelevant. The fact is that you could have, because it was digital data, easily had the data also somewhere that no-one could have prevented access. THAT is a backup. Anything else is as I said, fantasy. It may be a nice fantasy for a while but it's still illusion just the same.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't forget law. Control of access (and lack thereof) is one thing. What you are allowed to do with it is another. Think of mechanics and dry cleaners. I drop my car off at the mechanic, he/she does not have the right to drive my car for personal use. Likewise, the owner of a dry cleaners does not have the right to wear my cloths to a party. They have access to, and control of, my property and could certainly do those things. However, that access is for limited, legitimate, consensual purposes. If they violated that consent, then I would have a right to sue them. If there be justice, then I should win. Loss of lawsuits would create a deterrent to mechanics, dry cleaners, and oppressive governments.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property. Now the government can come and take it at will. Great logic there.
Cloud backups are the virtual equivalent to the the local U-Haul storage locker. The judges only need to look at this to figure out what the law should be.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Depends on your definition of "YOURS". Most people in modern Western civilizations recognize a distinction between posession and ownership.
The physical reality of the thing is that by definition, any data you are keeping on devices controlled by someone else is never really yours.
Shall I assume, by that definition, that you never park your car anywhere except on your own property, and that you never leave it in the custody of an auto repair or maintenance facility? Similarly, have you never left your coat at a coat check, or let your dry cleaner have posession of your clothing?
Your statement is both valid and poignant regarding the risk of a custodian unlawfully distributing or granting access to your information. This argument, however, claims you have no legal standing regarding the information in the first place, like saying you no longer own your street clothes when you leave them in the gym locker.
Cloud backups are great as a cheap last offsite resort but are not the same as backups that you physically control. You should never have data you care about recovering on a cloud service that you do not also have in multiple copies on devices you own.
Your advice is sound, particularly in the current legally uncertain context. But it does not imply that the government's argument is reasonable or excusable. It is our responsibility to the future of our nation to protect its information security from these misguided government officials. We must raise our voices against this sort of behavior precisely because our legal right to our information is not yet rooted in statutory bedrock.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So the stuff I have in the bank safe-deposit box is not mine either because a 3rd party controls it?
It's yours by law, but only by law. It's obviously not under your control any longer, nor do you alone have the means to access it. You have a strong expectation that you will be able to, which is why people store things in lockboxes.
The thing is that you went from virtual data to a real thing. We really don't have strong protections for retrieval of the contents of data blobs like a lock deposit box does, and furthermore the thing you put on a remote server is trivially stored elsewhere you do control. So there's really no equivalence between the two cases.
Virtual data that is only stored on a server you do not control has, I would say, far less an expectation that you can always access it. You may have local problems that prevent access. They may have a server failure and poor backups. Or, as we have seen, some government goons come and simply take the data.
If it WERE a lockbox, to use your metaphor, it would be one stored in a building with cardboard walls, on an island with a rickety wooden bridge that may collapse. Optionally imagine the owner of said structure is sleeping with the mayors daughter behind his back, and you get the proper sense of stability for your data on any remote server.
Given the high degree of risk that such remotely held data has in terms of access, and the ease with which you can simply have another copy ready - do that. That is reality. That is what I am saying, not that we are living in anarchy but that remote data is an unstable thing, regardless of the veneer plastered over it by your remote storage vendor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
US Government: "You don't own anything stored in the cloud."
Kim Dotcom: "Sweet. The US government has declared cloud stored data is not 'owned.' If you don't own it, if it's not yours, how could you possibly be liable for it? Everyone please subscribe to my new service fuMPAAItsAllInTheCloud.com!"
No where does it say in TFA that the data is not yours in a cloud environment. It states that the contract you agreed to with a 3rd party for holding your data limits some of your data rights. And yes this is the same as a public storage or a safety deposit box. In both those real world cases you loose certain property rights when you sign a contract with them to hold your stuff. The biggest example of this is that they get to keep your crap if you do not pay for storage...
Besides that if your storing your crap in a storage facility and the rest of the facility is being used for illegal drug trafficking it will be just as hard to get your stuff back and the cops will search your storage unit as well.
Depends on your definition of "YOURS". Most people in modern Western civilizations recognize a distinction between posession and ownership.
Did you ignore the part where I said "Forget Law"? Because my point was wholly based around possession.
Shall I assume, by that definition, that you never park your car anywhere except on your own property,
If I *could* make an exact copy of my car and keep it with me before parking my car in an area that was not physically under my control, I would of course do that. Would you not?
This argument, however, claims you have no legal standing
Your argument does, mine does not because again, I am not referring to what is legal.
But it does not imply that the government's argument is reasonable or excusable.
Of course not, but that was never my claim. My point is that it is absurd there is anyone that actually needs to have the government provide access to the data held on those servers, because every single client SHOULD HAVE had a local backup. It is not right or just or even legal, but that does not matter in terms of simply getting to your data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Arooogah! Aroogah!
This is not a drill.
Cloud backups are the virtual equivalent to the the local U-Haul storage locker. The judges only need to look at this to figure out what the law should be.
So if you stop paying your storage provider they should be able to access the data you were storing, and sell it to third parties?
So many people here trying to map physical concepts onto the virtual, never a good idea...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> Forget law. The physical reality of the thing is that...
The physical reality of the thing is that the government can break into your house, murder your pets and family, torture you for all your passwords, download your data, and then shoot you in the head and torch the place.
The law (and associated notions of civility, etc) is _everything_. Without it, every notion is just fantasy.
It's not. It is property of the Fed.
The law (and associated notions of civility, etc) is _everything_. Without it, every notion is just fantasy.
True enough.
But here's the thing. People who kept copies of the data stored on servers now held by the government, have their data. People who only had data stored on the servers the government took do not.
The fantasy is that you can rely utterly on law, for something as fragile as data held on a remote server. That makes no sense when it is so easy to safeguard against losing it.
Of course most people would still buy a house or a car when ownership is really just a matter of law. But it's very likely that will work, it is far less likely that data you hold on a remote server will never have issues of access.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You should check the law of your country. Apparently in the UK the money is legally property of the bank and the same happens in Italy (in short: the bank gets the property but has to give you back the money when you ask it).
What I really miss is the feeling that my government cared about my interests.
Really?
You are welcome on my lawn.
what's next: anything that's not kept in your hands 100% of the time is open to be taken away? where does this encroachment end?
Unfortunately, it probably won't until citizens in general gather the wherewithal to defend themselves and their chattels with deadly force.
By then, it will be far too late.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This will simply kill a lot of cloud use.
Suck on that, big sis.
Banks use your money in their own interest: to make more money without it actually representing more resources. Therefore, the value of what you thought was yours diminishes. In return, you get to pay them for the privilege of providing that service. So I guess you're basically right.
Noted, I won't store any data I don't want you snooping through in my email, on my gdrive, on my iphone, or in any location that isn't physically located at my address.
that has nothing do with what he said.
he said if you own a thing, and you then give that thing over to SOMEONE ELSE FOR SAFEKEEPING, you lose control of it. which is logically sound, you do lose direct control of it; you have instead entrusted that SOMEONE ELSE with controling it in your interests usually defined by a contract.
however i believe that while you may have ceded direct control to someone else, you have -NOT- ceded ownership (no reciept, no bill of sale, etc). and as such, Constitutional protections should absolutely still apply.
but your analogy is still wrong and retarded.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
1) Encryption
2) break up the file over several cloud services kind of like bit torrent
A huge difference is that when you sign up for a storage locker there is a physical document being signed in ink by a person. A contract. This contract spells out specifically what the owner of the storage facility may and may not do and will often state under what circumstances they will allow access by others.
OK, when you save stuff in some cloud backup, where is the contract? There isn't one. You get to look a some terms of service and that all. And those terms of service can be changed or revoked at any time.
So it is very simple, in the absence of a contract, what the provider of the service can do - anything they want.
By that logic Iron Mountain is a bad idea, nevermind that every bank uses them to provide off site storage for their backups. If you are not doing some sort of off site storage your disaster recovery plan is sorely flawed. And who said I did not have local backups? My whole backup plan is based on local storage that is also replicated to an off site location. Way to jump on me with barely any information about my setup up.
My main worry was that if I store a copy off site does that mean the government no longer thinks it's mine, and if not then who owns this code.
The whole idea kinda flies in the face of copyright.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
And yet, most Slashdotters who read this will go to the polls on Tuesday and cast a vote in favor of this exact sort of behavior from their government.
"Oh, but the wrong lizard might get in," they cry, "we have to vote for the lesser of two evils!"
So Sladotters vote for the lesser of two evils, then complain when evil wins the election.
*sigh*
I know I shouldn't be so hard on you Americans since you don't really have free elections (I don't consider elections where the electorate is brainwashed by overwhelmingly powerful corporate interests via the media and militarized police forces into voting for the two pro-corporate-interest parties to be "free"). :-\
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The government is trying to say that the data is not legally yours because it's stored on someone else's server.
This is akin to saying your property is not legally yours because it's stored in a storage locker that you rented.
In both cases you are paying someone to store something for you. In both cases it legally *should* still belong to you.
US Government: We don't want any tech inside usa. We require citizens to be retards1!!
The Government is arguing the data isn't really mine because it's hosted on someone else's servers.
So then, what about when it's in a shared colocation environment, such as macminicolo? Now I truly do own the "cloud" and the data is still contained on my personal property. It's just being place-shifted.
Actually, it turns out that it isn't.
The moment your money goes into your account at the bank, it ceases being yours and becomes the banks money. Technically the numbers in your account constitute a "promise" by the bank to pay you on demand, provided they have the funds to do so having not spent them recklessly on hookers and Greek debt backed CDOs.
And that's how bank runs are born.
May the Maths Be with you!
If there be justice, then I should win.
You must be new here.
Megauploads servers were not in the cloud, didn't protect them and you can encrypt data in the cloud.
So do you have an actual point or just blowing smoke?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
While I'm of the mentality that we're picking from two sides of the same coin, there is one significant difference between the candidates, to me. Who they will nominate to replace Ginsburg when she retires. While Obama will almost certainly move the needle toward the center (by nominating someone from the center, which is probably to the right of Ginsburg), Romney will almost certainly pick another Scalia/Alito type, swinging the pendulum very far and resulting in what amounts to another Lochnear era.
:(){
The states could arrest feds for this, but the weird thing about some of this is that a person may submit their own data when there are horrible things happening to people. It takes a patriot for it, but I am against that act because of what they /could/ do because of it. No, I'm not an Obamarama kind of guy, more the type that sees there are some very serious problems with a number of things that have gone on for quite some time in this country. There are laws that are broken to protect the innocent too, you's knows this.
Considering how everyone always laughs at me, calls me a luddite, tells me the future is the cloud, etc whenever I complain about the latest tablets and phones being released without some sort of user loadable storage, is this news enough of a reason to make you rethink your positions?
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
All my data on the Google Drive and Dropbox is encrypted by me first. Have fun trying to crack it.
Fun note: some of the files are simply dumps of /dev/random with fun filenames like "secret-files.zip" and "plan-b.tgz"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sorry for the gratuitous pun.
Yeah it sucks that the government is getting their big hands into this. I am glad the issue is coming out though. Perhaps this will make businesses sit up and take notice of the ramifications of data being in the cloud. Another issue that has yet to come to the fore is the legal issues of where the cloud servers are versus the originating country where the data comes from and vice versa. Including the dynamic nature of multiple geographical locations being used for failover and load balancing issues.
Just last week, my boss asked me what the cloud could do for our business and what it would take to get one setup. The easiest being Amazon S3 cloud service. I explained the benefits and the potential caveats, which included the government angle. The boss hated the thought of that. I suggested we could setup a personal business cloud, but would be responsible for the 24/7 up time & maintenance. Fun fun fun, I get to look up and see what the options are for setting up a business cloud is. Given the alternative, I agree with him though.
Interesting position the government is taking.....
I wonder if it applies to the government's data (actually, it's OUR data when you think about it) which they are busily migrating wholesale to the cloud?
Red
I rent an apartment, and I expect that the things in it are still mine. I sometimes grant my landlord access, but I don't believe that gives the government the right to search my apartment. I also rent a storage unit, and I'd expect the same thing.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property. Now the government can come and take it at will. Great logic there.
It's time to acknowledge truth. And that is, governments can do as they please.
Only when the people realize they can respond in kind, is when things get... interesting.
Why don't you punch a guy in the face when they cut the queue (usually)? Because you don't want to be punched back. Yelled at, easy. Puched... not so much. That applies to all entities. Just a matter of time and patience (ie: who's will run out first).
By that logic Iron Mountain is a bad idea, nevermind that every bank uses them to provide off site storage for their backups.
And that should scare the crap out of Iron Mountain and other fairly large and reputable offsite storage businesses. They should probably get their lawyers off their asses and file amicus briefs defending the applicability of the 4th Amendment to leased offsite data storage... otherwise, next time, it might be them, and I'm sure their customers know it. The phrase "secure offsite storage" loses much of its marketing strength if you have to put an asterisk after "secure" explaining that all bets are off if the feds decide to go for a bit of a troll in all that backup data.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Exactly, you are right!
If the bank goes bankrupt, you'll lose your money. In Europe all accounts of a customer are guaranteed up to 100 000 € , per customer. So if your have 300000 € in different accounts in the same bank, and if the bank goes bankrupt , you'll lose 200000 €. This mechanism is based on special funds.
I don't know the situation in US , but I guess it might be similar or worse.
And in case of deep crisis such as war, hyperinflation, etc, the governments may limit the withdrawn amounts. This has been done in the past in various countries.
Governments, religion, etc, ALL degenerate into tyranny, oppression and corruption! Which is why one constant throughout history is that periodic revolution is a necessity.
Do NOT use "Cloud" based services, is anybody stupid enough to think that a corrupt, authoritarian police state wouldn't read, poke into, go fishing into, etc ANYTHING that wasn't protected by encryption/steganography/hidden/obfuscated data!
Micro SDXC/SDHC
Hollow coin
Encryption/steganography
full coin jar
crowded dusty basement in somebody else's house
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I promise I'm not schilling. I use SpiderOak for my hosted files be it backups, shares or syncs. They don't store your password and can't reset it. If you forget your password you're S-O-L. All they can do is hand over an encrypted container that the government will have to crack.
"Zero knowledge" services like this are unlikely to become the norm in the US, because enough people won't understand just how the service works and will try to hold the service provider responsible when the user forgets their password (because they haven't had to type it in in 6 months and didn't have a way to store and access important passwords) and the company says, "Tough luck. We warned you."
So is my car no longer my property once I pay a valet to park it for me in a private lot of some third party?
Oddly, the government is also pushing (heavily) into using cloud services. Does that mean that for when they use public cloud, we can just go look at their data anytime we want? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
This is why data shouldn't be stored in the USA. A country which was once the light to the world, has become a tyranny to it's people and the world.
you look like a bunch of ignorant fools when you sue terms like "the Government'. It show that the writers do NOT understand the US government system.
There are branches of the government, there are Department and bureau. Who is doing this? what branch? what court? is it the supreme court?Is it a state court?
Here is a question:
If I share information with you, doe that mean I have the right to who you can tell it to? If I am arrested and have a piece of paper on me that tells the time we are doing a drug exchange, does the police have the right to use the information? How is vocal information different the one's a zero's?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
On top of that, I rent an apartment.
Does this mean that nothing in my apartment is mine?
So how about physical objects kept in a locked space at U Store It? How about your car when it's parked in a free public parking space?
The natural extension of the DOJ's argument is that you surrender property rights on all of that as well, but there lies madness.
Too bad it's government clowns saying it.
Space in the "cloud" is essentially leased storage. Do I now have to consider any leased storage as a loss of rights to the property I place in there too? What about the garage attached to the house I rent?
We have the Constitution as written and operated by our Founders.
Letters do not become the property of the post office.
Also, if each instance of a song or movie is real property owned by the copyright holder in persuit of a business - then the copyright holder owes both inventory and property taxes on every instance of every file, every year which they have not been paying.
When you don't pay property tax or inventory tax is is siezed by the government and becomes private property to be used by the public or auctioned off. That's what they do with everything from watches to houses.
Of course, several of the Founders set up public libraries - copied books and music and distributed them. Copyright exists to prevent other people from claiming the work as their own or selling it for profit. This is not theory - this is fact. This is the way the Founders wrote it and ran it in their lifetime. Only recently have the laws been perverted to prevent school kids from having access to learning materials and doctors from having access to research results.
The internet is the modern Library of Alexandria and is critical to the advancement of human civilization.
... not going to be surprised when I forward them the particulars of this story and receive the "I told you so" (or is that "I informed you thusly"?) that I warned them about.
If I can't touch the disk drives I don't want my data residing on them.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
A safe deposit box or the contents of a Gym locker are a better analogy
A) I was not the one that brought up money in a bank. Talk to the other guy.
B) NO a safe deposit box is a TERRIBLE ANALOGY. Because the thing I put into a safe deposit box can not have an atomically identical copy existing.
That is not true of ANYTHING put onto a server. If I put something into a box I need to feel secure that I can get it out again. With a server I don't NEED to feel as secure I can get to it because I can ALSO have it outside the box too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
By that logic Iron Mountain is a bad idea...If you are not doing some sort of off site storage your disaster recovery plan is sorely flawed
Yes, all that is true.
Iron Mountain *IS* a bad idea. But on the whole it is the LEAST BAD idea for most companies. Most companies simply cannot afford (in all sorts of ways) to store data offsite in the way Iron Mountain does. So they give up some security of that data for the greater ease of actually performing the backups that iron mountain provides.
Offsite storage is as you say a mandatory thing for any data you care about. But offsite can be done wholly yourself. It's just a matter of are you willing to spend what it takes to do that.
A third party data storage provider makes for great second offsite backup, if there's any way at all you do your own...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Great news! I'll make sure to store everything in the cloud from now on. When I get arrested, I'll just let the government know it's not mine and ask for the case to be dismissed.
or, for that matter, the skulls in my safety deposit box...
Best to keep them in the closet with the rest of the pieces.
1. Servers are property of someone
2. Servers install "cloud" as part of that property
3. Service is rendered as space is rented
In no way can any government state that just because i made a contract with one company the data suddenly is not mine anymore.
That is just legal smoke and mirrors, because the Gov know that they have not a case, and are trying now to justify their positions.
Why no mister copyright enfringment judge... I didn't share those movies with any pirates anywhere!
I just uploaded it to the cloud for my own storage which is legal. And as you know. you don't own any data in the cloud!
So its not my fault the pirates downloaded my movie copy 90,000 times!
If it was wouldn't we be within our rights to destroy it?
Since it wasn't listed I can only assume that Microsoft Azure is excluded from this liability. I'll move my data over right now!
Follow the money trail. Do you see why Banks avoid storing data in Cloud? YES. Did you ask why? Because they knew this issue would arise. So, lesson is: Your local hard drive is FAR better than some invisible Cloud. Cloud is good for computing. Not for data. Data is local.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I think you missed the point. Scratch that - I know you missed the point.
Says a guy who apparently cannot read.
and it's still not legal for them to do so.
Yes, AND? Because I never claimed it was legal or moral or right. All I said was that it could happen (obviously because it has) and that since you can do something to prevent it from being a problem, you should.
the difference is, if a storage locker owner or burglar accessed my stuff without explicit permission, I can take legal action against them.
How do you take legal action against a burglar? File a John Doe suit against the US?
When something is gone it is gone. That is what you seemingly cannot grasp about the server or the storage locker. But at least in the case of the server you can take steps to make sure it does not MATTER if the server data is gone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The physical reality of the thing is that by definition, any data you are keeping on devices controlled by someone else is never really yours.
Now why can't copyright zealots understand that?
But how is "the cloud" not like say, a post office box, or a key-locker in a bus station or whatnot? There is no precedent that while you're paying for the space, the property becomes the Post Office's or the Bus company's, so why when it turns to "bits", everyone wants to treat it differently?
They want to treat IP like property.... but only if you're not an individual citizen. That's reserved for paying members of the crony club. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Apparently the US Government believes that AYBABTU. Apropos meme is entirely applicable:
UserOne What happen ?
UserTwo: Somebody set up us the bomb.
....
Government: How are you gentlemen !!
Government: All your base are belong to us.
Government: You are on the way to destruction.
UserOne: What you say !!
Government: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Oh, okay then. But good luck decrypting it, government faggots.
I had a web site hosted with what apparently was a pretty shady hosting company. They got raided by the feds and all the hard drives seized. Meanwhile, some lawyers were appointed by the court to run the company. It was a mess getting my domain name back.
A quick resolution in the US and International courts would be to show that the USA Government has and is using cloud services! Therefore, the 'lose of data' as the USA Government lawyers assert equally applies to the USA Government in all of its functions and departments even the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America and the personal electronic files of the President of the USA where ever the President of the USA my be at any time on or in flight above planet Earth. The President was a very avid BlackBerry user!
Case closed!
Excellent point. It's exactly like telegraphing messages, when the actual person needed to read your message and retype it to transmit it trough the next channel. It may be reasonable to expect that those people won't go around telling everyone what your message was, but it's unreasonable to expect that it's your data and they can't do it.
Unless, of course, your message is encrypted.
When told they couldn't control how people accessed the data stored on all those shiny new optical disks, that they clearly owned, they just encrypted everything.
(double checks to make sure grocery list on dropbox is using 2048 bit AES. Wouldn't want the feds to know if I drink Coke or Pepsi products.)
Err? All of the top investment banks have massive projects to move some of their less sensitive infrastructures (and in some cases even sensitive stuff) in the cloud. The biggest hurdle is legal compliance. If you're a big investment firm and you want to, let say, using Google Apps for your emails, you need to strike a deal with Google to make sure the way its all stored can be audited and is in compliance with the 6 bazillion laws to protect against insider trading and money laundering.
If it wasn't for that, they'd be flipping Cloud stuff all over the place.
Disclaimer: I worked on projects to move infrastructure to Google Apps and Microsoft Azure for one of the biggest US investment bank.
"what's next: anything that's not kept in your hands 100% of the time is open to be taken away? where does this encroachment end?"
In the ultimate sense, nothing is really yours. Not even your life. Any time somebody bigger, richer or stronger than you comes along, they can take it away and there is nothing you can do about it. If that somebody happens to be your government, then there is nobody bigger and stronger that could possibly defend you. According to the theory of evolution, this is the principle of survival of the fittest. The government or anybody who controls the government, will always have the biggest gun and therefore be more fit than you and take whatever you think is yours away from you.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Who cares about Dotcom. The government is clearly wrong, otherwise it will destroy the networked computing industry.
As far as legal basis, even if post offices and bank deposit boxes could be violated due to some anti-terror legislation the contents would still belong to you.
What happens in this kind of situation IIRC is, the government gets sued or a higher court gets involved.
...and this is why I won't use cloud services to store anything....
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
So anything that's not inside your home, or inside your body, is automatically owned by the govt? How about the air, too? Next thing you know, the govt will be claiming that the real clouds in the sky are owned by them, too.
The government is calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require individuals or small companies to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings just to get their own property back.
Hey a mental red light went off again. It's a familiar one, so let's see.... Ah, here it is, in the Declaration of Independence:
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
Filed under the section under abuses that should not be tolerated, and a revolution fought instead... Interesting, especially because of this part prior to that:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I'm not sure how long the people will be able to ignore their duty as USA citizens...
Here's a translation for the code savvy Slashdotters:
2012: IF ( Government + Control >= Depotism ) GOTO 1776;
Why has this been so hard for folks to figure out, given the current climate? DON'T USE THE FRIGGIN' CLOUD! Sheesh!
Says it all.
Hardware is so cheap, that you don't need the cloud. Run your own mail server, file server, etc. free and use strong authentication combine with encryption. Linux has it all. Use it.
All music is FREE !
I listen to the clouds !
Digital music was just cloud music resting on a CD !
No copyright for digital products !
Doesn't that cloud look like a house ?
Toto we are not in Kansas any more....
This is why I've told every business and individual I've worked with as a consultant, not to use the cloud, yet every one keeps hyping the cloud. Yes, it's a great way to save money, but it's an open target for any agency that wants to look at your data (and that includes removing your access to that data) and the agencies that hold sway are known for over reacting, or just plain over kill. By the time this is done (and I sincerely believe they will hit many more sites) it is going to cost small businesses far more than they've saved. In some instances I'd expect businesses to fail. Remember the current administration is not known for its business friendly approach. OTOH the previous one was not exactly Internet friendly either. Of course it's our congress critters who are after the Internet.
Cloud computing is actually a careless computing.
I have been saying for years that relying on clouds is not a good idea. Store your data locally where it is under your control. Anything in the cloud is subject to hacker, corporate and government abuse. Only keep COPIES of things you don't mind getting out in the wild or being used against you by our learless feeders.
So if I store and run Microsoft Windows from my home cloud (whatever computer configuration fits the "cloud" definition) - does it mean that Microsoft lost property rights to it? Cool! I love it!
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Ok then if you don't own the data....
Then how can a hacker group like Anonymous or anyone else for that matter be charged for stealing or trying to steal it?
The only reason your money has any value besides kindling is a fragile social contract...
So... I don't own MY data hosted on a storage site, but a company owns THEIR data hosted on a storage site... or a computer owned by a consumer... or a DVD with it on it... or a flash-drive... or beamed over TV... or posted on a wall in a QR Code... or on a mobile phone owned by a consumer... or probably any number of other places that I cannot think of at the moment. What happen?
Obviously, this will progress to me not owning any Idea I have ever had based upon the fact that it may have been influenced by any number of companies, and it would therefore be the mutual property of any company I have ever head of.
Sounds like something that would make a good book (and probably already has). Alternatively, it could be worked into Shadowrun 2080 or '90.
I've been watching all this happen for years. It's why I set up and run the servers the way I do so that any third party services (like Amazon S3) have zero knowledge of how to decrypt my data or if possible I use software and services that give the user power over their data.
http://userdatamanifesto.org/
User Data Manifesto is a quite new site set up by Frank Karlitschek of the OwnCloud project (check it out, it's great) which outlines 8 points which give the user the control over their data in the cloud (kinda like the 4 freedoms, either Roosevelt's or Stallmans). It also has a list of projects which respect said points.
shrinks, this is lame.
God says...
went mirthful arts hide dark presidentship hitherto boiling
disengage retired forum off eclipses sentences Onesiphorus
waste rites ourselves intemperance motion lure herbs corporeally
kindness figuratively Augustine unknowingly City inner
cross amazing appointing game toward Difficulty condole
Whatsoever uncase impiety transmitted true-speaking very
forgive subjoinedst raised hereafter apprehending Presently
letters intimacy compendiously
... because the data is "only" their users' private information, communication and other such things. So convenience / scalability (something that "the cloud" is actually good at) wins.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
You are not above us. You ARE us. Govern accordingly.
http://wh.gov/bl2
Casteism
As far as I'm concerned any data stored on-line is part of a trust relationship. The company gains ownership while its with them and usufructory rights over it while they have it (for purposes of backups and administrative tasks). The person or company that uploaded the data becomes the beneficiary, the network admin or other decision maker is the trust administrator.
The government has no say in the matter. Even if they were involved, as Public Trustees they'd be lawfully bound to follow the instructions of the administrator.
That means people will look to technological solutions (client-side encryption) instead of blindly trusting that your cloud vendor only hires ethical people who won't misuse sensitive data.
Finally someone talking some sense! Law is what makes 'fantasy' reality. Really the only difference in you being in physical possetion is thay you 'll be whining in person instead of e-mail. And in fact you 'll probably be just invoking the law the right of property it provides you. Unless ofcourse you mean that you 'll physically try (and succed in) preventing police or whatever in taking your property. That won't probably work out that well.
What you are really basing your argument on is that the goverment using force on you to gain control of you property is a bigger transgression of that social contract than just ignoring your property rights when you are not on hand. However allowing any transgression at all will make bigger transgression of that fragile social contract even easier in the future.
Finally thanks for "Which is why anything of value is moved over said roads in guarded and/or armored transport.". Do you really think anybody uses guarded/armored transport to prevent the gov. gaining control of its property? They do it for protection against thieves and criminals against whom it is a genuine deterent. An actual state wont be prevented by an armored van and some rent'a'cops.
do you suppose that this will have any impact upon cloud adoption?
You never put your data on cloud services physically located in the USA.
Many companies now, offer their software up as licencing so you can run it in your home country on your own servers, so as to NOT be applicible to USA (crazy) law. Then again in my opinion, that largely defeats the purpose of the whole cloud thing, but hey whatever...
I know all this was started days ago, but I didn't see anyone bring up mentions of other materials "stored" in the cloud. Every e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, etc...so technically they aren't owned by the writer anymore?
How about music in the cloud...iTunes, Amazon, etc...
Movies...
And further, so a website hosted on anything other then your personal computer, you lose all ownership of all your images, thoughts, ideas, etc.
How about other ideas, it kind of throws intellectual property out the window. If you said something out loud, in a place where it could be over heard, then it traveled through "public space", and therefore might not be yours any more.