Amazon Publishes Opaque Transparency Report

Mark Wilson writes: Post-Snowden there is great interest in just what involvement the government has with technology firms. There are frequent requests from government agencies for information about users and the likes of Google, Snapchat and even the NSA itself have all released transparency reports that reveal, in broad strokes, the number of requests for data they have received. Amazon is the latest company to release a transparency report — although the term really should be used in the loosest possible sense. The report includes scant details about the number of subpoenas, search warrants, court orders, and national security requests received in the first five months of 2015. The report is so vague as to be virtually meaningless.

If Company.present_in(USA) then NSA has your data

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything else is just marketing.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Government does a LOT of work using Amazon clouds. They basically own Amazon at this point in the administrative sense.

I'm fairly sure that's why Amazon blocked wikileaks payments.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Amazon is CIA. A distinction without a difference, but... you know...

It's transparent

[backslashdot]

They made it transparent so you can see its total opacity.

So vague as to be virtually meaningless

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

So, a lot like their annual report, then?

Re:

[Trepidity]

I'm more surprised they bothered to release this at all. The annual SEC report for investors is required, so they have to file something. A "transparency report" is not legally required.

National security requests received: 0-249

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon AWS is full of commercially sensitive business data.

Its worth remembering Lavabit, had to close down over these requests to understand what they ask for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

"The court records show that the FBI sought Lavabit's Transport Layer Security (SSL) private key. Levison objected, saying that the key would allow the government to access communications by all 400,000 customers of Lavabit. He also offered to add code to his servers that would provide the information required just for the target of the order. The court rejected this offer because it would require the government to trust Levison and stated that just because the government could access all customers' communication did not mean they would be legally permitted to do so. Lavabit was ordered to provide the SSL key in machine readable format by noon, August 5 or face a fine of $5000 per day.[23] Levison closed down Lavabit 3 days later."

So these requests can be so broad that *1* request would be one too many. It requires Amazon trust the FBI who in turn hand the process over to the NSA to implement, who in turn keep all the data anyway regardless of any promise the FBI made to the court.

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[luvirini]

Yes, this is a reason why I would not place anything really commercially sensitive information on something like AWS unless it was strongly encrypted at my end with tools and keys at this end.

As all it really takes is one sufficiently bad apple in the police or at a suitable job in Amazon to read it...

Of course the problem is that if it is locally stored the police can just get a warrant and cart way all the computers.. so you cannot really win.

That's interesting...

[EmeraldBot]

They chose a very strange wording to categorize in this report. Why "responded"? Why not "complied with" or "fulfilled"? Do they mean to imply that they don't actually follow through with them all, even if law enforcement gets involved? Do they simply blow off those that they don't think are important? Very interesting, I wonder what the hidden meaning is...

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[ZeroWaiteState]

There's nothing hidden about it. In the normal subpeona process, where the respondent has access to the court system, they may contest the legality of the subpeona, or contest it based on the work involved being unreasonable or inappropriate. In other words, due process. National security letters got a lot of buzz because they throw due process out the window, but not all law enforcement activity revolves around national security letters. Most of the time, they do actually follow the constitution, which

It may be opque...

[drolli]

but i think it is far from worthless.

We can derive some facts from it:

a) the majority of access by the government and courts seems to take the legal route (which does not mean these accesses are completely ok with me)

b) a significant part is beyond control

c) I wont be affected; if the number of intransparent requests is less than 250, they are most likely not targeting me.

NSA own transparency report

[manu0601]

and even the NSA itself have all released transparency reports

Where can I peek at this NSA own transparency report, I am curious to learn wether it is about data they request or data thy provide.

Re:

[manu0601]

Where can I peek at this NSA own transparency report,

I should I red TFA to get the link: http://betanews.com/2014/06/28/nsa-under-the-microscope-agency-releases-transparency-report/ [betanews.com]

The new fad

[ZeroWaiteState]

Like social networking, surveillance transparency reports are the new fad. The fact is, producing actually transparent reports is illegal. Therefore, the game is appearing transparent when in fact you are not.