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> This is like saying data is being sent to Amazon Web Services. I have a (large financial institution) client that asks this question on their vendor due dili

> This is like saying data is being sent to Amazon Web Services. I have a (large financial institution) client that asks this question on their vendor due diligence and on-boarding and plans to phase out vendors who say yes and aren’t willing/able to change. They’re concerned about data privacy. Not just security, privacy. From Amazon.

vasco 6y ago
They better be huge or super niche, otherwise this sounds like an egotrip. Not sending data to a major cloud provider is quickly becoming like producing your own electricity because you don't trust the grid will provide a stable frequency and won't go down. At some point you just need to trust the utilities and go with it. Plus you can hopefully encrypt your data if this is a major concern.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Amazon have been caught using the sales data of their customers to compete against them. If they want utility levels of trust they should get nationalized.
  - Sander_Marechal 6y ago
    That's not AWS though
    - martin_a 6y ago
      Not yet.
    - nannal 6y ago
      But it's still amazon, the left hand doesn't get a free pass because the right hand pulled the trigger. Amazon has shown willingness to utilise privileged information in the past why wouldn't they go snooping around?
      - jollybean 6y ago
        "why wouldn't they go snooping around?" Because if Amazon retail, which sells stuff, is looking at sales in their channel, well, that's sneaky but the entire retail world is sneaky. If Amazon AWS is caught snooping at private AWS data, which contains HIPPA-compliant health info, financial records, government data, and some of the most sensitive data imaginable ... then they are toasty-toast. I think the same thing would apply to Google. GCloud is different than Search etc. if that firewall breaks down that business will crash.
        ForHackernews 6y ago
        > then they are toasty-toast. Why? Says who? Who or what would make them 'toasty-toast'? The toothless regulators? Feckless IT managers who make purchasing decisions? Impoent developers whining on hacker news? > if that firewall breaks down that business will crash. Not sure why you're so confident about this. a) GCloud is a distant 3rd place competitor in the cloud market anyway. b) Google's real business is ads, and at some point the numbers might make sense to decide it's worth cannibalizing their dying cloud. (Especially if they're going to pull the plug anyway?) c) None of the other data scandals has even slightly dented big tech.
        jollybean 6y ago
        They would be 'toasty-toast' foremost, because thousands of customers would sue them to pass the liability buck. Second, because IT managers and executives would freak out everywhere, with legit cause. Nobody on the planet running an SaaS would want AWS to be using their data. Third, it's probably illegal, so there's that. Finally, the PR fallout would be huge. If Blue Shield had a major client leak of HIPPA info, and it was because 'AWS staff were looking at it' it would be a big deal for AWS. They would have to prove to everyone that it was just a few bad apples etc.. Most of the other scandals have not dented tech because they are not really scandals. If FB has a breach and some consumer email addresses get leaked ... well that's not so bad. If AWS is looking at BestBuy AWS data, then BestBuy will sue and drop them, and others will follow suit.
- Bancakes 6y ago
  Privacy is the default. Why would any app ever share info without explicit user consent per-session?
- FriedrichN 6y ago
  Not using AWS is nothing like producing your own electricity. I can easily set up something like AWS, but I could never set up the infrastructure to produce electricity on a large scale. Also electricity is a relatively uniform and neutral product compared to a cloud service. You should have picked a different analogy.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    It would be easier to produce your own electricity than replicate any significantly sized portion of AWS.
    - FriedrichN 6y ago
      Creating a 24h off the grid electricity supply is not as easy as you think it is. Even installing solar panels is a non-trivial task on its own. In the end AWS S3 is just distributed file storage.
      - fnord123 6y ago
        Its so easy to take things for granted when they just work with many nines of availability and integrity.
        blacktriangle 6y ago
        The thing about AWS that is so impressive is not what it does. What AWS does was previously done by every single IT department at every company across the globe. What is impressive is the scale at which they do it. When you move to a world of every product hosting their own AWS equivalent, you've removed the challenge and impressiveness of AWS since you no longer need their massive scale, you only need enough to host your own product. Setting up your own servers was not a bottleneck to the generation of internet companies that preceded AWS, and time has only made hardware cheaper, bandwidth more affordable, and OSS higher quality and more plentiful. It is easier than ever to host your own services, AWS just makes it cheaper up front thanks to their massive scale. Point being, people aren't choosing AWS because AWS solves a problem they're incapable of solving, people are choosing AWS for pricing flexibility and faster time to market.
- moistbar 6y ago
  > Not sending data to a major cloud provider is quickly becoming like producing your own electricity because you don't trust the grid will provide a stable frequency and won't go down. What, you mean smart? A lot of data centers do exactly that. SevOne has at least five Bloom Energy H2 fuel cells that run the whole building because they can't afford any downtime.

vasco 6y ago

They better be huge or super niche, otherwise this sounds like an egotrip. Not sending data to a major cloud provider is quickly becoming like producing your own electricity because you don't trust the grid will provide a stable frequency and won't go down. At some point you just need to trust the utilities and go with it. Plus you can hopefully encrypt your data if this is a major concern.

pjc50 6y ago
Amazon have been caught using the sales data of their customers to compete against them. If they want utility levels of trust they should get nationalized.
- Sander_Marechal 6y ago
  That's not AWS though
  - martin_a 6y ago
    Not yet.
  - nannal 6y ago
    But it's still amazon, the left hand doesn't get a free pass because the right hand pulled the trigger. Amazon has shown willingness to utilise privileged information in the past why wouldn't they go snooping around?
    - jollybean 6y ago
      "why wouldn't they go snooping around?" Because if Amazon retail, which sells stuff, is looking at sales in their channel, well, that's sneaky but the entire retail world is sneaky. If Amazon AWS is caught snooping at private AWS data, which contains HIPPA-compliant health info, financial records, government data, and some of the most sensitive data imaginable ... then they are toasty-toast. I think the same thing would apply to Google. GCloud is different than Search etc. if that firewall breaks down that business will crash.
      - ForHackernews 6y ago
        > then they are toasty-toast. Why? Says who? Who or what would make them 'toasty-toast'? The toothless regulators? Feckless IT managers who make purchasing decisions? Impoent developers whining on hacker news? > if that firewall breaks down that business will crash. Not sure why you're so confident about this. a) GCloud is a distant 3rd place competitor in the cloud market anyway. b) Google's real business is ads, and at some point the numbers might make sense to decide it's worth cannibalizing their dying cloud. (Especially if they're going to pull the plug anyway?) c) None of the other data scandals has even slightly dented big tech.
        jollybean 6y ago
        They would be 'toasty-toast' foremost, because thousands of customers would sue them to pass the liability buck. Second, because IT managers and executives would freak out everywhere, with legit cause. Nobody on the planet running an SaaS would want AWS to be using their data. Third, it's probably illegal, so there's that. Finally, the PR fallout would be huge. If Blue Shield had a major client leak of HIPPA info, and it was because 'AWS staff were looking at it' it would be a big deal for AWS. They would have to prove to everyone that it was just a few bad apples etc.. Most of the other scandals have not dented tech because they are not really scandals. If FB has a breach and some consumer email addresses get leaked ... well that's not so bad. If AWS is looking at BestBuy AWS data, then BestBuy will sue and drop them, and others will follow suit.
Bancakes 6y ago
Privacy is the default. Why would any app ever share info without explicit user consent per-session?
FriedrichN 6y ago
Not using AWS is nothing like producing your own electricity. I can easily set up something like AWS, but I could never set up the infrastructure to produce electricity on a large scale. Also electricity is a relatively uniform and neutral product compared to a cloud service. You should have picked a different analogy.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  It would be easier to produce your own electricity than replicate any significantly sized portion of AWS.
  - FriedrichN 6y ago
    Creating a 24h off the grid electricity supply is not as easy as you think it is. Even installing solar panels is a non-trivial task on its own. In the end AWS S3 is just distributed file storage.
    - fnord123 6y ago
      Its so easy to take things for granted when they just work with many nines of availability and integrity.
      - blacktriangle 6y ago
        The thing about AWS that is so impressive is not what it does. What AWS does was previously done by every single IT department at every company across the globe. What is impressive is the scale at which they do it. When you move to a world of every product hosting their own AWS equivalent, you've removed the challenge and impressiveness of AWS since you no longer need their massive scale, you only need enough to host your own product. Setting up your own servers was not a bottleneck to the generation of internet companies that preceded AWS, and time has only made hardware cheaper, bandwidth more affordable, and OSS higher quality and more plentiful. It is easier than ever to host your own services, AWS just makes it cheaper up front thanks to their massive scale. Point being, people aren't choosing AWS because AWS solves a problem they're incapable of solving, people are choosing AWS for pricing flexibility and faster time to market.
moistbar 6y ago
> Not sending data to a major cloud provider is quickly becoming like producing your own electricity because you don't trust the grid will provide a stable frequency and won't go down. What, you mean smart? A lot of data centers do exactly that. SevOne has at least five Bloom Energy H2 fuel cells that run the whole building because they can't afford any downtime.