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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."
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.
Don't pay much attention to the news, do you?
https://www.rt.com/news/256729...
Oh, we've been paying attention. Question is, how much of these "anti" monitoring actions being taken are we supposed to believe are legitimate?
Hmmm, look what I found in TFA:
"However, the BND will continue to garner telephone calls and fax messages for Washington as this service falls under a different agreement."
So, requests merely hitting the BND in a different fucking format are a loophole big enough to drive a fleet of Mack trucks through. Gee, why am I not fucking surprised...
Behind our backs is where they've been illegally operating for years. Why the hell ignorant citizens of any country think governments will actually grow ethics and morals out of this is beyond even common sense.
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."