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It blows my mind how European political leaders are so incompetent that they don't see any issue having their sensitive IT infrastructure outsourced to foreign

It blows my mind how European political leaders are so incompetent that they don't see any issue having their sensitive IT infrastructure outsourced to foreign providers. They feel confident because they believe the words of providers or what is said in contract or "paper" agreements that the US will not spy on them when it is possible. Despite all previous examples of shamelessly doing what they wanted. Like when there was undercover operations to retrieve the fingerprints of political leaders.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
layer8 3y ago
The European Commission has been using Microsoft Office since the 1980s, so it’s hard to get rid of, given all the established processes and existing documents, and there were no significant data privacy concerns until the rise of telemetry and the push to the cloud a few years ago. But there are actual steps being taken to reduce the dependency.
- jrepinc 3y ago
  Thats why every smart person and institution should insist on using ončy completely free and open documents formats (like OpenDocument Format for office documents), protocols and standards. So that the chance of getting trapped into vendor locking is greatly reduced.
  - troupo 3y ago
    You will get locked in to the one/two vendors that can make those free and open document formats and protocols work, interoperate, and integrate with all the processes and requirements of a government. "Free and open" is not a silver bullet. Neither is Microsoft, but Microsoft has been providing government services for decades, and they know the ins and outs, the requirements, the policies, the access levels and a billion other details. None of that exists in "free and open". I wouldn't be surprised if just resolving the complex web of Active Directories in a small government department will make anyone mad.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      The fact that Active Directory is asinine isn't a slight against free software. Pretty much every reason I can imagine a government picking Microsoft has to do with prior contracts and integration. > You will get locked in to the one/two vendors that can make those free and open document formats and protocols work You don't seem to understand what the phrase "locked-in" means. A document format that is open and documented is not lock-in at all. It's the opposite - it enables people to create competing and integrated solutions without licensing proprietary software. Better yet, it incentives companies like Microsoft and Google to support something other than their own document format if they want to be competitive. An effective democracy cannot have a government that only supports customers of a product. "Locked-in" are the poor saps that license Microsoft software to control their battleships, their SAM sites, their CIWS and their TACANs. Nobody is ever going to disrupt their dominance even if Active Directory is the worst option available on the market. The lack of meaningful competition and standardization literally costs lives in some industries. It's why every modernized military is backed by a government that strictly drafts and defines it's demands for competing contractors.
      - troupo 3y ago
        > You don't seem to understand what the phrase "locked-in" means. A document format that is open and documented is not lock-in at all. An open document format in the context of a government is only as good as the integrations made with these formats. What you seem to not understand is why the "poor saps" are locked into Google, Oracle etc. Because OSS is incapable of understanding that a format or a protocol on their own are worth nothing
mrkeen 3y ago
I feel that way about IT organisations. How can you hold politicians to such a high standard if every typical dev shop is cloud-native these days. And who's going to provide the politicians a better way of doing it? Not only does IT lead by example in blind trust of the cloud, but they only sell their services that way also.
- greatgib 3y ago
  Imagine using the same argument with weapons for the military. Like buying warfare boats that are working thanks to servers in foreign countries? In fact, we have a precedent in France regarding Microsoft crawling itself in inside our military: https://www.april.org/en/french-ministry-defence-and-microsoft-open-bar-contract-we-gave-away-our-freedom-we-betrayed-our-cou https://www.april.org/en/french-ministry-defence-and-microso...
  - mrkeen 3y ago
    I'm not defending them. I'm just saying why it happens (and I should have added - it's trending in the wrong direction). > Like buying warfare boats that are working thanks to servers in foreign countries? I assumed it's that bad already. > In fact, we have a precedent in France regarding Microsoft crawling itself in inside our military: Are you going to get rid of Intel as well as Microsoft?
- belorn 3y ago
  > And who's going to provide the politicians a better way of doing it? Not only does IT lead by example in blind trust of the cloud, but they only sell their services that way also. This is where smaller and more specialized providers can gain ground, and in some areas has done so. When the large providers focus on price and ignoring the law, smaller providers can compete with a better (but more expensive) product. The biggest hurdle for a positive change is that in many situations, IT companies that ignore the law can often gain more by paying fines and splitting the cost among multiple won contracts, than smaller companies that follow the law. There is a similar problem in procurement where a large company can have a strategy to agree to anything in order to win all contracts, then relying on their lawyers to limit the fallout when they eventually fail to deliver. Systematic abusing the legal system should simply lead to increased fines.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

layer8 3y ago

The European Commission has been using Microsoft Office since the 1980s, so it’s hard to get rid of, given all the established processes and existing documents, and there were no significant data privacy concerns until the rise of telemetry and the push to the cloud a few years ago. But there are actual steps being taken to reduce the dependency.

jrepinc 3y ago
Thats why every smart person and institution should insist on using ončy completely free and open documents formats (like OpenDocument Format for office documents), protocols and standards. So that the chance of getting trapped into vendor locking is greatly reduced.
- troupo 3y ago
  You will get locked in to the one/two vendors that can make those free and open document formats and protocols work, interoperate, and integrate with all the processes and requirements of a government. "Free and open" is not a silver bullet. Neither is Microsoft, but Microsoft has been providing government services for decades, and they know the ins and outs, the requirements, the policies, the access levels and a billion other details. None of that exists in "free and open". I wouldn't be surprised if just resolving the complex web of Active Directories in a small government department will make anyone mad.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    The fact that Active Directory is asinine isn't a slight against free software. Pretty much every reason I can imagine a government picking Microsoft has to do with prior contracts and integration. > You will get locked in to the one/two vendors that can make those free and open document formats and protocols work You don't seem to understand what the phrase "locked-in" means. A document format that is open and documented is not lock-in at all. It's the opposite - it enables people to create competing and integrated solutions without licensing proprietary software. Better yet, it incentives companies like Microsoft and Google to support something other than their own document format if they want to be competitive. An effective democracy cannot have a government that only supports customers of a product. "Locked-in" are the poor saps that license Microsoft software to control their battleships, their SAM sites, their CIWS and their TACANs. Nobody is ever going to disrupt their dominance even if Active Directory is the worst option available on the market. The lack of meaningful competition and standardization literally costs lives in some industries. It's why every modernized military is backed by a government that strictly drafts and defines it's demands for competing contractors.
    - troupo 3y ago
      > You don't seem to understand what the phrase "locked-in" means. A document format that is open and documented is not lock-in at all. An open document format in the context of a government is only as good as the integrations made with these formats. What you seem to not understand is why the "poor saps" are locked into Google, Oracle etc. Because OSS is incapable of understanding that a format or a protocol on their own are worth nothing

mrkeen 3y ago

I feel that way about IT organisations. How can you hold politicians to such a high standard if every typical dev shop is cloud-native these days. And who's going to provide the politicians a better way of doing it? Not only does IT lead by example in blind trust of the cloud, but they only sell their services that way also.

greatgib 3y ago
Imagine using the same argument with weapons for the military. Like buying warfare boats that are working thanks to servers in foreign countries? In fact, we have a precedent in France regarding Microsoft crawling itself in inside our military: https://www.april.org/en/french-ministry-defence-and-microsoft-open-bar-contract-we-gave-away-our-freedom-we-betrayed-our-cou https://www.april.org/en/french-ministry-defence-and-microso...
- mrkeen 3y ago
  I'm not defending them. I'm just saying why it happens (and I should have added - it's trending in the wrong direction). > Like buying warfare boats that are working thanks to servers in foreign countries? I assumed it's that bad already. > In fact, we have a precedent in France regarding Microsoft crawling itself in inside our military: Are you going to get rid of Intel as well as Microsoft?
belorn 3y ago
> And who's going to provide the politicians a better way of doing it? Not only does IT lead by example in blind trust of the cloud, but they only sell their services that way also. This is where smaller and more specialized providers can gain ground, and in some areas has done so. When the large providers focus on price and ignoring the law, smaller providers can compete with a better (but more expensive) product. The biggest hurdle for a positive change is that in many situations, IT companies that ignore the law can often gain more by paying fines and splitting the cost among multiple won contracts, than smaller companies that follow the law. There is a similar problem in procurement where a large company can have a strategy to agree to anything in order to win all contracts, then relying on their lawyers to limit the fallout when they eventually fail to deliver. Systematic abusing the legal system should simply lead to increased fines.