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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."
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
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."
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
What Microsoft created here is a "plausible deniability". They are neither the owner nor the operator of the computers. So if the judge argues that the data is stored on the german servers, Microsoft can say that they asked their german service provider, but the german service provider refused (rightfully, as Deutsche Telekom is incorporated in Germany and subject to german laws), and thus Microsoft simply can't answer the judge's request.