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NSA Internet Spying Sparks Race To Create Offshore Havens For Data Privacy
schwit1 writes "Some European leaders are renewing calls for a 'euro cloud,' in which consumer data could be shared within Europe but not outside the region. Brazil is fast-tracking a vote on a once-dormant bill that could require that data about Brazilians be stored on servers in the country. And India plans to ban government employees from using email services from Google and Yahoo Inc. It is too soon to tell if a major shift is under way. But the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimates that fallout from revelations about NSA activities could cost Silicon Valley up to $35 billion in annual revenue, much of it from lost overseas business. A survey conducted this summer by the Cloud Security Alliance, an industry group, found that 56% of non-U.S. members said security concerns made it less likely that they would use U.S.-based cloud services. Ten percent said they had canceled a contract. Even some companies that seek to profit from fears about U.S. snooping acknowledge that law-enforcement agencies in other countries want to catch up with Washington's capabilities. 'In the long run, there won't be any difference between what the U.S. or Germany or France or the U.K. is doing,' says Roberto Valerio, whose German cloud-storage company, CloudSafe GmbH, reports a 25% rise in business since the NSA revelations. 'At the end of the day, some agency will spy on you,' he says."
The answer is not consolidation but more decentralization.
a euro data hub accessible only to european intelligence agencies who will happily share data with their NSA buddies
even then the NSA was tapping under sea fiber cables 20 years ago. before that we were sucking transmissions out of the sky
it was called Cryptonomicon.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
The commercial interests, big commercial interests are negatively affected by this spying. It's going to hit some bottom lines big time pretty soon. If we're to believe in the strong arm of lobbying, domestic spying should end any day now, right? Riiight :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Is it still up for sale?
Before all this, people didn't even think about creating a real competitor for Google or Amazon. Now we can expect some real options for these services soon. This is good news for everyone, thank you USA!
I'm glad that someone is attempting to quantify this. As someone who works in sales for hosted services, I saw this trend emerge virtually overnight with the Snowden leaks - the complete erosion of trust for any service hosted in the U.S., even if the actual, measurable impact to date any of my customers of being spied upon is exactly nil.
Now if only someone would compare the impact to the NSA's operating budget and draw some lines, things might get better. I've been called an optimist before, however.
So Brazil, Germany, and lots of others, get some sort of privacy back... but what about Americans? Why the hell should they be spied on just because someone in a uniform decides he's like to "collect it all"?
This is what happens when you sleep with the NSA.
Great, build an offshore data center beyond the NSA's reach in the Bahamas, heavily guarded both physically and electronically.
How exacy will they stop the NSA from snooping in while data is getting there? If they plan to transport the tapes on a vessel from time to time, good luck getting funding for such project. What if the vessel accidentally bumps into a torpedo along the way?
First we rid ourselves of manufacturing to become a country of services and intellectual property. Then we destroy the reputation of our services by spying on everyone who uses them. Good job government. Good job.
And here's the big-ass BUT, really, DARPA built the Internet. Someone has been spying on some of it all along, most certainly. BUT the level it has risen to with the holy excuse of THA TURRISTS is unexcusable. The Snowden Shaming was long overdue.
That is all.
Wasn't internet designed around the idea to route around damage? Places where spying on everybody and his sister is the norm certainly looks like something to be avoided. But then again, we don't want the terrorists to win. Right?
US citizens outraged their Constititional Rights are being trampled on enough to end nsa spying on them? Nope. Mega corporations losing revenue because of nsa spying? That nsa spying needs to end immediately.
I expect a surge in client side cryptography, where servers store encrypted data and the keys never leave the client. This can't suit every application but it could be a good selling point for a while. Most of it will be done in JavaScript for convenience, even if it's not a good idea. Mega is just an entry level example of what can go wrong. Some "real" client application (mobile or desktop) will be developed, I wonder if they'll get mainstream. Anyway that only raises the bar for whoever wants to spy on us. There are many other ways to bypass encryption (rootkits, 0 day exploits, etc), nevertheless it's going to increase their costs.
Yes. But some countries do so only to maintain their domestic security. That's not always good, but I can deal with it. What many people don't like is losing their privacy in the name of propping up the US' good old boy commercial interests. And getting pulled into every global military dick swinging contest.
Have gnu, will travel.
However, a lot of companies will be more comfortable if an agency from their own country will be spying on them, if only to keep US-companies from getting business intelligence.
From that point of view, the USA just got too greedy with their industrial espionage.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Maybe, but we don't have to make it easy.
I remember Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: the data haven is built underground on some island with brand new huge pipes / data cables.
Who's going to be the Sultanate of Kinakuta ?
Yes and you can be sure that most governments are already spying on their own people. The point of using non-US cloud services is to limit the amount of eyes on your data. If your company is based outside of the U.S., your government is likely keeping their own tabs on internet traffic - maybe not to the same extent as the NSA, but it's likely happening nonetheless. Then, if you use U.S.-based cloud services, you have to worry about the U.S. government having access to that data as well. By using a provider in your own country, you limit the number of parties available to snoop on that data to the company offering the cloud services and your local government.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that there is even a single state on this Earth that isn't spying on the Internet or wouldn't shut-down or coerce a service operator to give them secret access?
Because your endpoints will still be compromised.
Unless all of you are moving to Linux or BSD, we will still have full access to all your data.
Love,
The NSA
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
it won't protect anyone.
If anything, it will simply expose europeans to spying by european governments by labeling your secret information secret and then putting it in their pocket.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
For a minute I thought the title was "NSA Internet Spying Sharks Race To Create Offshore Havens For Data Privacy". Those would have been some cool sharks.
The US has been screwing the EU over for financial gain ever since the Marshall Plan.
Will they shutdown the FBI, CIA and NSA? The DHS?
It's not a "Free Country", or even a plausible republic, with Secret Police.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Apparently it's not only politicians who are remarkably inept when it comes to technical matters, but many others as well. I think it's safe to say at this point that there is no way to 100% ensure that any data stored "in the cloud" is safe from the prying eyes of the truly motivated.
You want your data to be 100% secure? Then store it off-line. If the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, military intelligence, or whoever you care to name really wants to see what's stored on a USB flash drive or hard drive sitting on a shelf in my house (or stored in a safe deposit box, or in a vault somewhere, or buried in the ground in an undisclosed location) then they'll have to come and physically get it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'm pretty sure they won't shut down the IRS. :-)
So now that the veil has been pulled back, when do we all realize that the next logical conclusion as citizens globally is to exit the stock market en masse? Any notion remaining that it was a fair game have been squashed - if NSA staff and contractors can monitor exes and lovers for months without effective oversight, imagine the financial incentive to do the same to C level execs?
Oh, shit.
The law was written so the President can set "essential" branches or programs that cannot be shut down. For example, the ACA program cannot be shutdown. Given the President's current track record, most secret agencies will be going strong tomorrow morning (though we wont know about it till they knock on the door).
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
You're wrong. There's no risk of surveillance using US services.
It's a certainty
Sure every country has a spy group. But every country does not have the SAME spy group. My search engine is in Europe. My e-mail is in Russia. My web site is in Thailand. You think the KGB is going to share data with the NSA? No way.
You use various services on the Internet. Get those services from different companies, different countries. If you use Google for everything, then Google knows everything about you, and Google will tell the NSA. Yandex will not tell the NSA; no way; Yandex is in Moscow. Google's business plan is to become an expert on you, and I don't want ANYBODY to be an expert on me. It's not about who you trust, it's about trusting nobody.
It's the pipes, the fiber cable (overland and sea) and the microwave relay networks. Guess who these all belong to... The TelComs. That's right the phone company (it would be a misnomer to say phone companies--they all interconnected, both by electrical and corporate networks). Even if a country tried to isolate it's self from the NSA/TelCo cartel, if it were to connect to the rest of the world, it would still be venerable.
This is what the Pirate Bay attempted to do back in 2007.
If we colonize Mars, it won't be the World Wide Web anymore. UWW?
Plenty of folks will use chinese IT services without considering the risk is equally great.
Sad to say but I'm all for breaking the internet back into smaller chunks. And that's going to create a lot of risk as people start pulling of terror plots which might have been seen before.
But-- we lose over 10x as many people as we ever did to terrorism. Our fear of terrorist acts are allowing a huge distortion of the 1st world societies.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
... Is Tor. There's nothing stopping the USA from reaching across borders the same way it did with Kim Dotcom.
I'm pretty sure they won't shut down the IRS. :-)
Actually, DHS is considered an essential service that will not be shut down, while IRS auditing will be shut down!
"How do we scare the data out of the US so we can hack it at will?"
"Leak a story about how we currently hack it at will, and everyone will run offshore"
"Excellent...."
Only until the Republicans take the wheel, then they'll thank the Democrats for demonstrating what a useful tool it can be when they audit every left-wing organization.
"b-b-b-but Obama!" will replace the previous Republican cry of "b-b-b-but Clinton!" and we'll get more of the same because that's what everyone votes for.
Mega corps are already loosing money - people outside the U.S. are actively looking for non-US providers now. Before, they simply went with whatever provider they discovered - and the american ones were often the best known.
I'tll be interesting to see who is strongest - mega corps or the NSA. Not that it matters much for me, I have a non-US provider now anyway . . .
The NSA is also hurting our internal relations, embarrassing us, and is affecting our economy aside from trampling our civil liberties. Good job government!
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
'In the long run, there won't be any difference between what the U.S. or Germany or France or the U.K. is doing,'
As far as I know, neither Germany, France, not UK have secret courts, national security letters, gag orders...
If your company/country wants to create its own private cloud storage, here is the fast way:
1) Set up an Alfresco server on Linux. Enterprise-class, scalable, very customizable.
2) Have users install CmisSync, it looks like a Dropbox client, but syncs with Alfresco (or any other CMIS-compliant server).
Like that's gonna help anything.. You have no certainty the company you are using offshore doesn't have any connections to the NSA or are safe from it (data still has to go from and to those servers)..
NSA will simply setup shop in a consulate in that country, and it will be business as usual.
It is SPY vs SPY game as depicted in Mad Magazine of the 1960's
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada