Forrester: NSA Spying Could Cost Cloud $180B, But Probably Won't 136
itwbennett writes "Forrester's James Staten argues in a blog post that the U.S. cloud computing industry stands to lose as much as $180 billion, using the reasoning put forth by a well-circulated report from The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation that pegged potential losses closer to $35 billion. But Staten's real point is that when it comes down to it the cloud industry will likely not take much of a hit at all. Because as much as they voice their displeasure, turning back isn't really an option for businesses using the cloud."
Re:lolwut? (Score:2, Interesting)
The idea that businesses are going to jump ship because of NSA spying is ridiculous.
Then you're not paying attention; some already have.
For one thing, most countries are doing the same thing the NSA is doing.
[citation needed]
Re:"the cloud" is just mainframes again (Score:3, Interesting)
What?
I think what he's saying is we've spent the past 10 years giving up whatever privacy we gained during the PC revolution and (most of us) are back to the days when BOFHs & random spooks have access to our private bits.
Personally I haven't given up on mainframes entirely but for some services at least (personal email, personal photo sharing) I've moved from Google/Yahoo/etc. to imap & webspace at my alma mater.
Murmurs from an internet nobody. (Score:5, Interesting)
So my paranoid raving #1 is that they can break any of the common encryption schemes. Some mathematicians might say pshaw but hey this is now a post Snowden world. If commonly accepted encryption isn't broken then yay!
But for those with real good data such as bankers who don't want the NSA handing the data over to Goldman Sachs (why not as they make for great conspiracy fodder) then I would only use one time pad encryption. Good luck finding a mathematically loose thread there. A simple way to do one time pad encryption is just like the old spies. You send say 5 people over to your destination each with a different 1TB memory chip containing truly random data. (radioactive decay, xored with rain xored with a lava lamp) Then when you transmit data you xor it through all 5 layers of random data.
But as for the article if I were in Europe I would move my servers to Europe tomorrow. These government goons all think alike so I suspect that even the Euro police will cooperate anyway; they'll just deny it in a different accent. For instance, I sit in Canada and don't believe for one second that the local police wouldn't pee themselves with delight if the us Feds asked them to do something.
So the giant rethink in many security setups will have to be EVERYTHING that I don't control is completely compromised. Even individual employees could be compromised. Thus I would only use data schemes that would require the blackmailing/threatening/screwing of many employees.
But the simple reality is that this requires everyone to become a Rosa Parks. Every employee at these big companies needs to step out and spill the entire truth. If one person comes out they are Snowden II. If 100 come out the party is over.