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Amazon could pull a CloudFlare and knock them off the internet as nationalenquirer.com seems to be hosted on AWS. My guess is Amazon/Bezos already has multiple

Amazon could pull a CloudFlare and knock them off the internet as nationalenquirer.com seems to be hosted on AWS. My guess is Amazon/Bezos already has multiple backups of the Enquirer's digital assets for forensic purposes. https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680 https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680

kerng 8y ago
I'm not sure if you are joking, but that's exactly what they should not be doing. They also can't just go poke around their customer's data. That would be very unwise...
- optimiz3 8y ago
  Well come on - don't host your business on a company you plan on antagonizing. Pretty sure AWS has contract clauses that allow them to deny service or perform forensics when criminal activity is suspected, and blackmail would certainly qualify.
  - techntoke 8y ago
    Pretty sure that AWS doesn't have permission to conduct criminal investigations. Those would need to be turned over to a criminal prosecutor. It would be a pretty scary world if corporations were able to police consumer and business data whenever they "suspected" something. Talk about political hit jobs.
    - tribby 8y ago
      (I think) the parent comment is implying that you might explicitly give such permission to amazon by agreeing to their terms when purchasing service. even if that isn't the case, the amount of effort required for amazon to obtain a warrant from a magistrate judge or however they'd play it is negligible.
    - optimiz3 8y ago
      Why does it need to meet the bar of a criminal investigation? All they need to do is to tick one of the boxes in their ToS and kick them off their property. Heck, there's an entire sub-category of law colloquially known as "Amazon-law", where you hire folks who specialize in navigating the intricacies of Amazon's policies so your business doesn't get crushed: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketpl... Edit: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ TL;DR - they can do whatever they want. No Illegal, Harmful, or Offensive Use or Content You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available content that is illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive. Prohibited activities or content include: Illegal, Harmful or Fraudulent Activities. Any activities that are illegal, that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation, including disseminating, promoting or facilitating child pornography, offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions, make-money-fast schemes, ponzi and pyramid schemes, phishing, or pharming. Infringing Content. Content that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property or proprietary rights of others. Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy, or otherwise objectionable, including content that constitutes child pornography, relates to bestiality, or depicts non-consensual sex acts. Our Monitoring and Enforcement We reserve the right, but do not assume the obligation, to investigate any violation of this Policy or misuse of the Services or AWS Site.
      - omeid2 8y ago
        They don't need to change a thing! It is already there: > You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for... content that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation... Character assassination of the chief head of AWS is damaging to the reputation of AWS in no uncertain terms.
    - skookumchuck 8y ago
      Don't we have that now? People expect universities, for example, to have some sort of shadow legal system to investigate crimes that occur on campus (such as sexual assault).
- sterlind 8y ago
  Unwise and unnecessary. It's high-enough profile that the DoJ might obtain a warrant for their data, and Bezos would be chuffed to comply.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    It would actually be fantastic PR for AWS if the DoJ obtained a warrant and then they fought the warrant to protect their customer, showing just how far they'll go to protect their customers, even the ones they hate.
- paxys 8y ago
  Blackmail and extortion is 100% against AWS terms of service, so they would be within their rights to discontinue service. I do agree that they gain nothing by doing so.
  - anxman 8y ago
    This kind of defeats the purpose of Probable Cause. AWS would only fight the subpoena if it was overly broad and could materially impact many customers. In this case, I want to see AMI taken down.
- cookingrobot 8y ago
  Microsoft did something similar a few years back - reading the hotmail messages of someone they thought had received some stolen software. It looked pretty bad. https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/34229/microsoft-hotmail-privacy https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/34229/micros...
- jki275 8y ago
  They could easily fire them as a customer. They shouldn't look at the data though.
ck425 8y ago
That would be a terrible idea. We're at a point in time where the public, politicians and the tech community itself are becoming wary of tech monopolies. Currently Amazon has avoided the brunt of it (mostly due to being consumer friendly unlike Facebook) and the scrutiny it has had, has been focused on it's retail business. Bezos booting someone off AWS would bring a ton of public scrutiny to an even more powerful monopoly, one that the public and politicians are by and large ignorant of. Plus it would (rightly) shake the tech community out of its complacency around cloud lock in and encourage us to explore solutions. (I realise there's already a lot of good work happening around this, but it's not an issue I've seen the wider industry talking about much)
skrebbel 8y ago
Aannnd in a spectacular twist to this beautiful soap opera, https://www.nationalenquirer.com https://www.nationalenquirer.com is down. Even if AWS has nothing to do with this it (unfairly) reflects extremely bad on them.
- scottmf 8y ago
  Are you in the EU?

kerng 8y ago

I'm not sure if you are joking, but that's exactly what they should not be doing. They also can't just go poke around their customer's data. That would be very unwise...

optimiz3 8y ago
Well come on - don't host your business on a company you plan on antagonizing. Pretty sure AWS has contract clauses that allow them to deny service or perform forensics when criminal activity is suspected, and blackmail would certainly qualify.
- techntoke 8y ago
  Pretty sure that AWS doesn't have permission to conduct criminal investigations. Those would need to be turned over to a criminal prosecutor. It would be a pretty scary world if corporations were able to police consumer and business data whenever they "suspected" something. Talk about political hit jobs.
  - tribby 8y ago
    (I think) the parent comment is implying that you might explicitly give such permission to amazon by agreeing to their terms when purchasing service. even if that isn't the case, the amount of effort required for amazon to obtain a warrant from a magistrate judge or however they'd play it is negligible.
  - optimiz3 8y ago
    Why does it need to meet the bar of a criminal investigation? All they need to do is to tick one of the boxes in their ToS and kick them off their property. Heck, there's an entire sub-category of law colloquially known as "Amazon-law", where you hire folks who specialize in navigating the intricacies of Amazon's policies so your business doesn't get crushed: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketpl... Edit: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ TL;DR - they can do whatever they want. No Illegal, Harmful, or Offensive Use or Content You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available content that is illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive. Prohibited activities or content include: Illegal, Harmful or Fraudulent Activities. Any activities that are illegal, that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation, including disseminating, promoting or facilitating child pornography, offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions, make-money-fast schemes, ponzi and pyramid schemes, phishing, or pharming. Infringing Content. Content that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property or proprietary rights of others. Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy, or otherwise objectionable, including content that constitutes child pornography, relates to bestiality, or depicts non-consensual sex acts. Our Monitoring and Enforcement We reserve the right, but do not assume the obligation, to investigate any violation of this Policy or misuse of the Services or AWS Site.
    - omeid2 8y ago
      They don't need to change a thing! It is already there: > You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for... content that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation... Character assassination of the chief head of AWS is damaging to the reputation of AWS in no uncertain terms.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    Don't we have that now? People expect universities, for example, to have some sort of shadow legal system to investigate crimes that occur on campus (such as sexual assault).
sterlind 8y ago
Unwise and unnecessary. It's high-enough profile that the DoJ might obtain a warrant for their data, and Bezos would be chuffed to comply.
- jedberg 8y ago
  It would actually be fantastic PR for AWS if the DoJ obtained a warrant and then they fought the warrant to protect their customer, showing just how far they'll go to protect their customers, even the ones they hate.
paxys 8y ago
Blackmail and extortion is 100% against AWS terms of service, so they would be within their rights to discontinue service. I do agree that they gain nothing by doing so.
- anxman 8y ago
  This kind of defeats the purpose of Probable Cause. AWS would only fight the subpoena if it was overly broad and could materially impact many customers. In this case, I want to see AMI taken down.
cookingrobot 8y ago
Microsoft did something similar a few years back - reading the hotmail messages of someone they thought had received some stolen software. It looked pretty bad. https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/34229/microsoft-hotmail-privacy https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/34229/micros...
jki275 8y ago
They could easily fire them as a customer. They shouldn't look at the data though.

ck425 8y ago

That would be a terrible idea. We're at a point in time where the public, politicians and the tech community itself are becoming wary of tech monopolies. Currently Amazon has avoided the brunt of it (mostly due to being consumer friendly unlike Facebook) and the scrutiny it has had, has been focused on it's retail business. Bezos booting someone off AWS would bring a ton of public scrutiny to an even more powerful monopoly, one that the public and politicians are by and large ignorant of. Plus it would (rightly) shake the tech community out of its complacency around cloud lock in and encourage us to explore solutions. (I realise there's already a lot of good work happening around this, but it's not an issue I've seen the wider industry talking about much)

skrebbel 8y ago

Aannnd in a spectacular twist to this beautiful soap opera, https://www.nationalenquirer.com https://www.nationalenquirer.com is down. Even if AWS has nothing to do with this it (unfairly) reflects extremely bad on them.

scottmf 8y ago
Are you in the EU?