Patriot Act Dampening Cloud Computing? 148
Julie188 writes "Governments are turning the Internet into a cyberspace reflection of real-world geographic conflicts. One report says that the Canadian government is forbidding its IT organizations to use services that store or host the government's data outside their sovereign territory. They especially cannot use services where the data is stored in the United States because of fears over the Patriot Act. What kinds of jurisdiction issues might people face — think Google cooperating with the Chinese government — as cloud computing becomes the norm and your data is stored in 'offshore parts' of the cloud?"
I said it before, I say it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should a foreign investor risk it to bring his IP to the US with the threat hanging over his head that suddenly it's declared illegal to export it, should he discover something the US deems "useful for terrorism" (read: something we'd rather have in the hands of US companies than others)?
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Re:I said it before, I say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I said it before, I say it again (Score:5, Informative)
That's exactly correct. I work for the security department of a Canadian government, and we've decreed that no data can be stored on American servers, sensitive or otherwise.
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And all governments claim the right to do whatever they want (with approval of parliament in case of America, in other words : the people that represent you) within their territory.
That's obviously what makes it necessary for other governments to keep their data away from eachother. That's not strange, that's just a fact.
Geographical conflicts exist in the real world, as everybody knows. Here's a newsflash : so do you. Nature, it seems, has not seen
Re:I said it before, I say it again (Score:4, Insightful)
If you were from somewhere with data protection laws then it's most likely to be illegal to store certain kinds of data anywhere which dosn't have at least similar laws and/or the appropriate treaties in place.
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Facism here we come! Heil Bush! And all that...
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> so why should Canada be any different.
> think Google cooperating with the Chinese government
People seem to forget that the Chinese gov consider the US to be just as 'bad' as the US gov considers them; and, in many ways, they have a point, but it's the perception that's the key in this case, not the reality (whatever it might be).
Not just canada. (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
Doing daily business would require bringing the keys and the data together. Whoever is empowered to do so for normal operations will simply be waterboarded until the keys appear.
Better to move the keys, data, servers and administrative staff to a friendlier jurisdiction.
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And that would work because no Canadian ever needs to travel to the US and the US is never above arresting a visitor for something that they did somewhere else.
Or any other nationality. Certainly never to this [wikipedia.org] guy.
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No. Can you say "I take the Fifth"? Sure you can....
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And second, I doubt it works when the Patriot Act comes into play.
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Have I ever? Of course not. You have to be caught to go in front of a Jury. Of course, this isn't something that goes to a Jury, in any case. The cops (feds) ask the question, you say "I want to speak to my lawyer", interview with the cops ends.
Later, someone else may bring you a Search Warrant for
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Governments and outsourcing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Beyond that, their stance seems relatively well founded. Take a look at the new privacy policies for Google Health [google.com]... saying that they might release your records in some situations when required to do so by law.
But, I think the summary doesn't make it sufficiently clear that this is just government IT departments, not all information technology in Canada. Private citizens and businesses can still do as they wish.
--
Electronics kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC from my economy courses, that's what free market is about.
Instead we get more and more laws lobbied into existance by large companies to ensure those companies have an edge over anyone trying to muscle into the field. Worse yet, outdated and obsolete structures and business models are being propped up by laws that go directly against anything free market represents.
Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other day a friend of mine was watching a Youtube video of a speech given by one of the founding members of the Canadian Action Party [wikipedia.org] and he, not being canadian, asked me who this guy was. I explained to him what the CAP was all about. Said that while I agree with their Canadian Nationalist views they feel that globalization is a big conspiracy by the corporations in order to rule the world and make everyone their slaves. His response was "well isn't that already true ?"
It seems that a large portion of the public feels that corporations have far too much power and that free market has failed. They want government to further regulate the markets because they would rather have the government control their lives than corporations (they refuse to see that the public gives the corporations their power just as we give the government it's power).
Since I've failed to remain neutral I might as well just add that I am a pro-free-market libertarian and I think it will take a couple of wars before we can claim that the corporations enslave people. I do agree, however, that they get away with too much, but not because of a lack of regulation. It's because money buys justice and politicians. THAT is what that needs to be fixed. Yet many people don't look that deep into it. I can say with assertion that most people that I know in person certainly don't. They see that money = corporations = free market = evil and thus want more regulation.
Oh and it doesn't help matters when every single case of deregulation has resulted in short term economic upheaval while things balance out. Forget about selling long term advantages if it's going to cost people jobs and higher prices in the short term.
Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The time of enlightenment brought us the separation of church and state. What we need is a second time of enlightenment, separating enterprises and state.
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(-1: Redundant)
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We should make you the head of a new religion and elect you president. j/k
I will say that I really like your idea a lot. To do it I think will bring another or new kind of religious war though. I'm up for it.
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The only hope I have is the spread of wealth concentration. The US government doesn't seem to be interested in that, though, and here in Europe the tendency is to follow the US trend, slowly killing the social welfare systems.
Relative wealth is generated through the creation of bottlenecks (e.g. the curren
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And here I thought Europe's slow killing of the social welfare system was a result of the EU's requirement that deficit spending be kept under certain hard limits.
Note that the hard limits are actually about the same as the USA's current (excessive) deficits. but they ARE trying.
I'm curious, though. What can the EU actually do if a member s
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Ok, most do. The rest become lawyers.
Snide comments aside, a corporation cannot have any consciousness. Or rather, the people working for it can brush it aside because they're not to blame. If you are to lobby for a change of laws to further your corporation's needs, you can even see just how many people you put into misery because of it, but you're not to b
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If that were true, then the rich would hold their assets in their own names rather than in corporations and trusts. Two of the significant differences are (1) there is no legal category of "Limited Liability Citizens" in the sense that there is with corporations (2) the nature of corporations is defined by corporate law, making profit the overriding motive always. Few individuals will make financial gain the over
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Now if the public wants to remove these corporations power they have to do it by boycotting everything really because theres so many companies and subsidiaries and what not that if you try to boycott say... Sony over the rootkit fiasco, well theres plenty of things you may end up buying that will end up having to not buy a whole lot since theres so m
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Agreed, however you don't have to pick addlepated examples like crypto-communists to illustrate the point.
The market maximizes the efficiency of resource to the production of excludable benefits. If you want an economic system to produce iPods for around $100-$200, the market is the thing. If you want a system that will ensure breathable air and drinkable water for everyone, it's not. Not without some tinkering.
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What
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Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell? Is that real? There are actually people stupid enough to upload their medical history to Google? Why?
That's the scariest thing I've seen all week.
Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people do need to touch the hot stove. I stopped trying to keep them from doing it, people don't learn 'til they burn their hands.
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Yes! I don't want people finding out about my Marfan's syndrome.
Hang on. How do I delete this post?
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That's the blessing and the curse of information. You cannot undo it. Despite what DRM tries to tell you.
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What the hell? Is that real? There are actually people stupid enough to upload their medical history to Google? Why?
That's the scariest thing I've seen all week.
I'd prefer to have all of my medical data stored by Google than to have it spread between different hospitals and private practices, each one with a different view on how they should deal with your data and none of which have ever shown me their privacy policies. Not to mention that their policies are very close to Google's, since they have to follow the same laws...
Not just governments (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not just governments. Universities and other institutions have obligations under Canadian privacy laws. If they store data in the US, for example by using GMail accounts or online question services from text book companies, the US government can gain access to private data on Canadian students and the University will then be liable for a breach of privacy under Canadian law.
This has meant that at least some Canadian Universities are looking at implementing policies which forbid the storing of data in the US. The result undoubtedly will have some economic impact on the US since now either US companies will have to invest in Canadian based servers or be automatically disqualified from bidding on IT contracts (although I also understand that the US government can force US companies to reveal data even if it is not stored in the US so it may rule out any US company). This is not just hypothetical either - to my knowledge it has already affected contract decisions.
Re:Governments and outsourcing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose, if one's outlook is a narrow view where the idealogy of capitalism overrules all other ideas. My own opinion is that one of the prime responsibilities of government is to set responsible policy. The citizenry or business interests are free to pursue things however they want in the context of the policy.
When viewed in that light, the notion of "picking winners and losers" is a construct that's as absurd as it is political. If a government chooses to raise mileage standards or raise taxes to offset the costs of environmental degradation, for example, Ford is free to go broke trying to sell SUVs, just as Toyota is free to build another plant in Ohio to meet increased sales. If the government adopts an open document format policy, Microsoft is free to adapt or continue their current practices. If there's any picking involved, it's being done in the corporate boardroom.
A sovereign government mandating local storage may indeed interfere with certain business models, but then again, so what? One door closes, another one opens. That's not to say the politics of the issue aren't interesting or worth discussing.
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Someone mod that +1 funny. How are they supposed to pay for their re-election campaigns if they don't take direct action to influence the economy? The government is made up of people who, every few years, need to raise millions of dollars on nothing but promises, the only thing they can promise that makes that worthwhile is a good return on a campaign "investment".
The Audacity! (Score:2, Funny)
Good news for Canadians (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: Good Government (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's supposed to work that way under the US Constitution.
The Legislative branch makes the law. Second, the Executive branch executes the law. Last, the Judicial branch interprets the law. Each branch has an effect on the other.
Legislative Branch
Executive Branch
Judicial Branch
These checks are inefficient. And this inefficiency is borne out when one political party in the US system captures all three of the branches (as it has) and then, for the purpose of extending the power of that party, fails to exercise restraint and to provide a check on the other branches.
What I have noted is that the only branch that has actually decided to act in a manner consistent with Constitutional checks and balances is the Supreme Court. To the extent the Legislative Branch (or branches of the various States) have worked to mandate sentencing or require judges to act without their power to interpret, the Supreme Court has ruled these requirements as nothing more than guidelines. And this has gone on despite a rather radical shift in the Supreme Court to the political right. And I would agree with them, even though my own political direction differs strongly from many of their recent decisions and statements.
The Orwellian-named "USA Patriot Act" was a bill that was utterly altered -- in its entirety -- in the middle of the night by Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft within a committee that was also completely asleep at the switch. This is part of the rules of Congress, where a committee will take in a b
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But I noticed the US voters want "strong" leaders. People who make decisions and follow them through, no matter what. If they're wrong, they're wrong, but that's still better than changing their mind.
I guess, as a European, I won't fully understand that. And I guess neither would any US voter understand why we can vote for parties and politicians who tell you the exact opposite they told you 5 years ago.
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I suppose the European systems have their flaws. Some don't even have written constitutions (oh horrors!). But Americans do want leaders who appear strong and able. And I'd imagine Europeans do as well, as I cannot think of any leader in Europe who appears weak to me.
The issue with the US system of government is that our Executive is not directly elected by the people. And, I suppose, European Executive power, mostly being vested in Parliaments isn't either.
The various US States elect our President. And e
Re: Good Government (Score:4, Informative)
Either system is, in my opinion, doomed to be dissatisfying for the voter. The former because if the parties are too similar (as they are now, to an outsider's view), there is no real choice. The latter because you just know it doesn't matter how you vote, they won't get anything done anyway because no idea gets a majority.
Most European countries today have a minimum limit to get a seat in the parlament. You need at least 4-7% (varying between countries) to have a seat. Usually, gaining that much support already gives you a few seats right away. And while 4% doesn't sound like a lot, it pretty much means that the average European parlament contains about 4-6 parties.
This usually (if not almost always) leads to coalition governments. Which has its advantages (radical changes in policies are nearly unheard of) and of course disadvantages. Today, the disadvantages start to show a lot more than they did in the past, it seems our parties are too concerned to show "weakness" to cooperate anymore. More than one country has a coalition today that can't get anything sensibly done because the coalition partners are unwilling or unable to agree on compromises, because they fear their voters will feel they "lost their line" and "gave in".
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Imagine a beach, stretching for a mile. There are people lying on the right, people on the left, scattered over the beach. There are two vendors of ice cream, positioned pretty much at 25% and 75% of the beach. Both of them make ample business.
Then one vendor ponders. If I move towards the middle, some people from the other side might come to me when I'm closer. The ones on the far end have to come to me anyway, since the other vendor is even further away.
Of cou
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The Netherlands has no voting threshold whatsoever, and has been pretty stable (even to the point of being extremely dull) over most of its history as a democracy. You need just 0.667% of the votes to get into the 150 seat parliamen
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Keep on making sense like this and we'll either revoke your Slashdot ID or your US Citizenship.
Or maybe both.
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That's covered by the "Power to initiate constitutional amendments". Since Roosevelt tried to pack the Supremes, we've passed an Amendment mandating the size of the Court. Congress has no power to affect it further without another Amendment.
DUH!!! (Score:2)
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Job Security & National Security (Score:2, Insightful)
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50% Insightful
50% Overrated
TrollMods think Americans' job security and national security are "overrated", so they don't even want to talk about it. Because talking about it in public could protect it.
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I (as a Canadian) found your comment out of place.
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Now, what you're describing (a valid comment in the wrong place) is known as "Offtopic", not "Overrated". But my comment was on-topic, but from the reverse perspective.
How is that "trollish"? What were the "predictable comments" which would be the sole purp
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Even if you had started your comment out with something like "We in America have the same problems as the Canadians
I'm not agreeing that you should of been modded down, just describing how I felt when I first read your comment.
Generally I like reading your comments but occasionally
Patriot Act Aside ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Canadian government trying to keep things in Canada is very standard practice. I didn't RTFA and I'm sure it mentions the Patriot Act, but I really doubt the Patriot Act is the sole reason that they won't outsource hosting companies to the US. Their policy is most likely that they can not outsource anything to anywhere outside of Canada unless they have no choice.
Re:Patriot Act Aside ... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/26684res20060906.html [aclu.org]
and most of those were just against other Americans by their own government.
If they treat their own citizens like that, why would we expect them to respect the rights of another nations citizens. Particularly over things like privacy which has been long protected to a higher standard in Canada than the US.
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C
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Thus you could call Canada's actions a "patriot policy" or even a "patriot act"
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1) It's "English", not "British English" (the Scotts, Welsh, and Irish have their own languages). The language spoken in England is simply "English" - call it "English English" if you must; and
2) Canadian English is different to English anyway.
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However, I don't see that the other statistics prove anything.
My god! (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean the US's total disregard for everyone's rights in the name of the "War on Terror(ism)" makes people wary of allowing them near themselves or their data?
I'd never have guessed...
Can't you just encrypt it? (Score:2)
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Can't you just encrypt it? Or is strong encryption some how not in keeping with the cloud computing metaphor?
Depending on what you're doing with the cloud, no, you might not be able to encrypt it.
If you're looking at something like simple file storage then you could certainly encrypt your data. Encrypt it on your machine...upload it for storage...download it when you need it...decrypt it again on your machine. That's fine.
But if you're looking to use somebody else's CPU cycles that doesn't work so well. Your data has to be in some kind of executable state as it passes through their CPU. Even if the data is tr
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"Cloud computing" has other problems (Score:5, Interesting)
From capacity to "service level agreements" that guarantee little, cloud computing has business problems.
I went to this talk [stanford.edu] at Stanford by the head of "cloud computing" at Amazon. Technically, Amazon's approach to "cloud computing" is quite impressive. As a business, it works for a special reason - Amazon's load is 4X greater than normal during the buying season before Xmas. Amazon has to size their data centers for the Xmas buying season. For the rest of the year they have vast excess capacity. That's why Amazon's "cloud" is so cheap to use.
So Amazon's "cloud" is a great service, unless you need it during November and December.
Good (Score:2)
They especially cannot use services where the data is stored in the United States because of fears over the Patriot Act.
Good. It's about time our knee-jerk fear-inspired legislation started hitting us in the pocketbook. And I hope the TSA and Customs Service attitude toward searching laptops at the border provides one more reason for people not to come here. I hope the visa and passport requirements encourage overseas travelers to travel and shop elsewhere. I hope all this silly crap comes back to bi
I disagree with your tag (Score:2)
Point being? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, let's let Lockheed Martin store their working research on what they're building as our next latest stealth spy planes on computers in Germany and Canada. This is a great idea.
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Lets get real... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disconnect it from the net.
given the vast amount of digital leakage and other human errors, who are you really putting trust in?
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Next encrypt it with a one-time pad. Then burn all copies of the pad.
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given the vast amount of digital leakage and other human errors, who are you really putting trust in?
Well, if the servers are in Canada, it's still going to be a very long list.
If the servers are in the US, it's pretty much going to be the same very long list, plus the US government.
Which is more secure?
Safe Harbour (Score:2)
However, there are provisions under the Safe Harbour [export.gov] rules that allow data to be t
Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Very true (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think this policy has much to do with the Patriot Act, though I'm sure it acted as a catalyst. We'd probably not store any data in Netherlands either. If you're an institution that has to worry about compliance with various national privacy laws, it makes sense to store all information either within the organization, or at least within the same country.
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Well, it is [slashdot.org] run by "Americans" (from the USA, not anywhere else in America), and USA people have proved that they seem hell bent on spreading paranoia about and hate for the USA - it's something they're undeniably best at.
Nations do this all the time. (Score:3, Insightful)
A problem for the UK as well (Score:2)
So, and rightly so, many MPs are trying to get the contract awarded to a EU company instead to avoid privacy implications and possibly because it brings the UK goverment into conflict with EU and UK privacy laws.
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If they have global clients then they may not be able to have all their servers in one country. For just this kind of reason. Though they certainly don't want to locate many servers in a country which most of the rest of the planet is likely to object to having
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Why not encrypt your backups? Sure, it's a fair bet the NSA can decrypt them, but #1, they probably aren't who you are worried about and #2, if they're really motivated, they likely aren't going to be bothered with the fact that
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However it's one which actually makes sense in terms of "patriotism" and "national security"
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Not surprising to see that there's a few fascists out there with moderator points and absolutely no sense of humour.