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Microsoft Putting Servers In Germany To Keep User Data Away From US Intelligence (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ever since the Snowden leaks, people and businesses in foreign countries have been wary about hosting sensitive data on U.S. soil for fear intelligence agencies would be able to comb through it at their leisure. Microsoft has announced a plan to combat those worries, saying they will host infrastructure for Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM at data centers in Germany. In addition, the data centers themselves will not be run by Microsoft, but by a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, which eliminates more legal avenues for U.S. agencies to access the data stored there. "The two data centers will be based in Magdeburg and Frankfurt am Main, with Microsoft stressing this 'data trustee' model means it will not have any access to customer data without the consent of the trustee, and that it cannot therefore be compelled — 'even by a third party' — to hand over customer data."
This just in... German authorities access data on behalf of USA in accordance with intel sharing agreements.
From Wikipedia: "The Dagger Complex is a US military base in Darmstadt (Germany), close to Griesheim [about 20km south of Frankfurt am Main]. [...] The complex is operated by the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) on behalf of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Building 4373 within the complex houses the NSA's European Cryptologic Center (ECC), the agency's principal SIGINT processing, analysis and reporting center in Germany."
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it cannot therefore be compelled — 'even by a third party' — to hand over customer data.
They might not be able to hand over the data, but I imagine they could still be found in contempt for not doing so.
Judge: "Hand over the data."
Microsoft: "We are physically incapable of doing so."
Judge: "Not my problem."
So, every communication and bit of data is stored on a German server by a German company?
This is a great win for the National Security Agenty in the United States.
The NSA is not "legally" allowed to spy on USA Citizens. Great Briton and other countries have similar laws about their own citizens (for now.)
But a German company and its servers are German not American. So the NSA is perfectly in the right to hack, intercept or interrupt those severs in the interest of national security.
Sure, the current USA government can't publicly compel the release of USA citizens, but everything else is now on the table once your data is communicated to or kept by a non-citizen.
The only question now is: is Microsoft Word the format of choice for foreign terrorists? It's currently the standard for corporate ones.
To me, it just seems like Microsoft wants to look like they're trying to protect data from the US government's snooping, rather than actually working to protect data from US government snooping.
Germany is one of the last places I'd go to escape US intelligence agencies. Microsoft would've been more believable if they'd partnered up with relatively neutral parties like Iceland or Switzerland.
The idea that they're trying is using technical measures to keep the CIA and friends out, and the legal protection to stave off warrents. It's a decent idea when you think about it - it's not bulletproof, but a step up from existing measures. Furthermore, it makes it more illegal - going after an American on foreign land isn't domestic surveillance and it's not foreign surveillance either, making it harder to justify, and as such hopefully making whoever approves this crap more worried about the potential reprecussions. And that I think is the real purpose of this: not to make users immune to the intrusion, but simply to make it more difficult. I don't mind a fight being up, even if it is yet to be determined how effective it is.
Who thought we'd ever see a big corporation use a loophole for the benefit of its customers? I almost want to say that's what really scares me, if bribery didn't work.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
But just today all news sites over Germany reported that the German BND (the direct successor of the Nazi "Organization Gehlen") has been spying on allies, too, including France and German(!) diplomats.
I can't see the point of your Nazi reference. The Federal Republic of Germany can also be considered the direct successor of Nazi Germany. It's probably more accurate to describe the Gehlen as a CIA program that recruited former members of the Nazi military in much the same way that the US military and later the space program used scientists who were active in the German war effort.
It is no more effective than security theatre at the airport...just makes you feel warm and fuzzy
Erm... which part of the TSA make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
Sometimes the guy doing the pat downs is bearded and sweaty
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
It had a lot to do with the Nazis, and this is well-known. Gehlen himself was from the Wehrmacht, but he managed, with the help of the US, to recruit many former members SS, SD, Abwehr, and Gestapo, in addition to many officers from the Wehrmacht. They got new names and identities, and yes, some of them were wanted for possible involvement in war crimes. Reference: The German wikipedia entry ("Nähe zum Nationalsozialismus") and any history book on the BND.
To be fair, most officers recruited by Gehlen were from the Wehrmacht and thus not necessarily ardent Nazis.
This is not really a surprise. One of the ways you get around domestic anti-surveillance laws is to ask some friendly allies to do it for you. Basically you spy on their citizens and they spy on yours. Each government can then say it is not infringing its own citizen's rights.
... and yet, if you (hypothetically) were to hire a hit man to perform a murder, or a thief to steal something for you, the resulting investigation would indict you for conspiracy to commit murder or conspiracy to commit larceny and you would be punished just as much as your chosen proxy.
Yet another example of one set of laws for us, and another set for "them". The concept of rule of law takes another swift kick to the balls, again.
As government expands the economy and jobs disappear.
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Just one more data point
Yesterday M$ announced major data centre expansions in those countries, for Azure, DynamicCRM and other cloud offerings (link. I imagine the lower corporate tax rates had something to do with it!
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The country most aggressively spying on the USA is not China, not Russia, not the USA itself, it is France.
And how do you know that? A moment's thought will show that, to make that assertion, you must know (1) how aggressively France is spying on the USA; and (2) how aggressively all other countries are spying on the USA.
Moreover, it's by no means simple even in the case of France. Which agencies do you take into consideration? The obvious organs of state intelligence might have delegated the task to better hidden, or entirely private teams.
And, of course, if you know how aggressively France is spying on the USA, don't you think it possible that the FBI and the many other federal agencies whose remit includes counter-espionage might share that knowledge? And if they do, isn't it likely that they would have done something to make France spy less aggressively?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.