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AWS claims their cloud is "sovereign" and "independent" while remaining owned by a US corp subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act). That's not how sovereign

AWS claims their cloud is "sovereign" and "independent" while remaining owned by a US corp subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act). That's not how sovereignty works. EU citizen operators don't change the fact that the underlying technology, patents, and corporate control remain American. Zero details on pricing, available services, or how they'll handle conflicts between US law and their "sovereignty" promises. For something launching next year, that's concerning.

wkat4242 1y ago
Yeah this is just window dressing. The NSA will still get their feeds whenever they want. That said, being fully European doesn't guarantee anything either. They'll just bribe some employees or use an allied intelligence agency within the EU.
tw04 1y ago
[flagged]
crazygringo 1y ago
> That's not how sovereignty works. Actually, it is. It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. That means it's 100% subject to European law, not American law. And being staffed by Europeans means they are immune to any US legal threats. I.e. the US can't compel a European employee to reveal data under a subpoena the way it could compel American citizens. Amazon remains the owner and controls the technology, yes. But as long as things are encrypted correctly and the hardware is in Europe, the data is secure from the US government. Sure Amazon or any cloud provider could build a back door, but that will eventually be discovered whether by hacker or whistleblower and their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever. It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that.
- dabedee 1y ago
  Being "100% subject to European law" doesn't override the parent company's obligations under US law. At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. Which one will the US parent company prioritize if/when faced with enforcement actions? The only way this would work is if the European operation were truly independent & separately owned, no corporate control from the US. But I don't think that's what AWS is proposing.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    > At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. No, that's the whole point of this setup. Amazon will not be violating US law when its European subsidiary says no, we won't respond to your subpoena. It would be if Amazon USA owned the European data centers directly and employed American workers. But it will do neither. The US courts can't compel companies to do things they have no legal authority over. It doesn't matter that Amazon owns the subsidiary -- fundamentally, the subsidiary is a foreign entity.
    - XorNot 1y ago
      Case in point: China. China forces foreign companies to run this setup all the time, and its one of the chief issues with outsourcing and IP property theft/transfer (depending how you look at it). This is an arrangement which enormously benefits Europe because it's quite similar.
  - skissane 1y ago
    > Being "100% subject to European law" doesn't override the parent company's obligations under US law. At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. Which one will the US parent company prioritize if/when faced with enforcement actions? IANAL/etc, but the subsidiary and the parent are different people (legal personhood). The US parent is only responsible for the EU subsidiary’s actions under US law to the extent it has effective control of them. If the parent tells the subsidiary to obey a US legal order, and the management of the subsidiary refuses on the grounds of EU law - then the management of the parent has done what US law requires them to do. The US management might consider firing the EU management and replacing them with new managers - but if the job requirement is “must be willing to break local law”, nobody with an appropriate background is going to apply, so if they fire them they won’t be able to replace them, hence they are legally justified in not firing them. It is normally true that a wholly-owned subsidiary just does whatever the parent’s executive management demands, but this is one of the rare cases where that generalisation breaks down. (If we consider non-wholly-owned subsidiaries, it becomes a much more common thing.)
- blitzar 1y ago
  > It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. Already was - I pay Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL ("AWS Europe") an entity established in Luxembourg. > That means it's 100% subject to European law. Always have been. What is it with tech companies thinking the law doesn't apply to them because muah internet? > US can't compel a European employee Courts compel companies not employees, companies get fined and CEOs go to jail for failure to comply.
- pyrale 1y ago
  > It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. That means it's 100% subject to European law, not American law. As a subsidiary company, does Amazon retain operational control over that branch? If so, it's subject to the CLOUD act, and therefore, not compatible with EU rules. > Amazon remains the owner and controls the technology, yes. So, basically, the answer is that the EU subsidiary is not independent. Consider Lavabit's story, the US admin would have no issue asking Amazon to trojanize their tech. > their reputation will be forever ruined That happened 20 years ago. > It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that. They wouldn't have a say in the matter.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    > If so, it's subject to the CLOUD act, and therefore, not compatible with EU rules. I'm assuming the CLOUD act is the entire reason why they're explicitly going with European-only staff. That way Amazon can honestly say it has no operational control to violate EU law because there's no American employee they can command. Operational control isn't all-or-nothing. European employees will do whatever Amazon tells them unless it breaks European law, in which case they won't. Amazon is intentionally setting it up in a way that it won't be able to do anything about that.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Or they’re attempting to ‘green wash’ something that US parent can definitely actually control, so they have some plausible deniability. It is not even close to the first time something like that has occurred.
    - pyrale 1y ago
      > Operational control isn't all-or-nothing. When the US government has no issue asking a company to hand over its tls keys, it really is.
      - crazygringo 1y ago
        If the company has no keys to hand over, because they gave them to the Europeans, then obviously that's quite a different situation. The US can ask. That doesn't mean it gets what it wants. The government loses in court all the time.
- ljm 1y ago
  So Amazon becomes a supranational entity. You should be ashamed of yourself for shilling for this shit. Curtis Yarvin would be proud.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mdavid626 1y ago
  So no backdoors, right? Pinky swear?
- benterix 1y ago
  > their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever Unfortunately this is not how it works. A cynic in me would say just the opposite, looking how Crowdstrike is doing now after causing one of the biggest technological disasters of the decade by their incompetence.
- dns_snek 1y ago
  > Sure Amazon or any cloud provider could build a back door, but that will eventually be discovered whether by hacker or whistleblower and their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever. It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that. In which alternate reality is that? This already happened with Snowden's leaks when we learned about Microsoft's, Apple's, and Google's participation in the PRISM program and their market dominance has only grown since then. There were no consequences, the market didn't care, the shareholders didn't care, their customers largely didn't care, and they didn't lose any sleep over it.

wkat4242 1y ago

Yeah this is just window dressing. The NSA will still get their feeds whenever they want. That said, being fully European doesn't guarantee anything either. They'll just bribe some employees or use an allied intelligence agency within the EU.

tw04 1y ago

[flagged]

crazygringo 1y ago

> That's not how sovereignty works. Actually, it is. It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. That means it's 100% subject to European law, not American law. And being staffed by Europeans means they are immune to any US legal threats. I.e. the US can't compel a European employee to reveal data under a subpoena the way it could compel American citizens. Amazon remains the owner and controls the technology, yes. But as long as things are encrypted correctly and the hardware is in Europe, the data is secure from the US government. Sure Amazon or any cloud provider could build a back door, but that will eventually be discovered whether by hacker or whistleblower and their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever. It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that.

dabedee 1y ago
Being "100% subject to European law" doesn't override the parent company's obligations under US law. At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. Which one will the US parent company prioritize if/when faced with enforcement actions? The only way this would work is if the European operation were truly independent & separately owned, no corporate control from the US. But I don't think that's what AWS is proposing.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  > At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. No, that's the whole point of this setup. Amazon will not be violating US law when its European subsidiary says no, we won't respond to your subpoena. It would be if Amazon USA owned the European data centers directly and employed American workers. But it will do neither. The US courts can't compel companies to do things they have no legal authority over. It doesn't matter that Amazon owns the subsidiary -- fundamentally, the subsidiary is a foreign entity.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Case in point: China. China forces foreign companies to run this setup all the time, and its one of the chief issues with outsourcing and IP property theft/transfer (depending how you look at it). This is an arrangement which enormously benefits Europe because it's quite similar.
- skissane 1y ago
  > Being "100% subject to European law" doesn't override the parent company's obligations under US law. At best, it creates a legal conflict where AWS must violate either US or EU law. Which one will the US parent company prioritize if/when faced with enforcement actions? IANAL/etc, but the subsidiary and the parent are different people (legal personhood). The US parent is only responsible for the EU subsidiary’s actions under US law to the extent it has effective control of them. If the parent tells the subsidiary to obey a US legal order, and the management of the subsidiary refuses on the grounds of EU law - then the management of the parent has done what US law requires them to do. The US management might consider firing the EU management and replacing them with new managers - but if the job requirement is “must be willing to break local law”, nobody with an appropriate background is going to apply, so if they fire them they won’t be able to replace them, hence they are legally justified in not firing them. It is normally true that a wholly-owned subsidiary just does whatever the parent’s executive management demands, but this is one of the rare cases where that generalisation breaks down. (If we consider non-wholly-owned subsidiaries, it becomes a much more common thing.)
blitzar 1y ago
> It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. Already was - I pay Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL ("AWS Europe") an entity established in Luxembourg. > That means it's 100% subject to European law. Always have been. What is it with tech companies thinking the law doesn't apply to them because muah internet? > US can't compel a European employee Courts compel companies not employees, companies get fined and CEOs go to jail for failure to comply.
pyrale 1y ago
> It will operate as a subsidiary company based in Europe. That means it's 100% subject to European law, not American law. As a subsidiary company, does Amazon retain operational control over that branch? If so, it's subject to the CLOUD act, and therefore, not compatible with EU rules. > Amazon remains the owner and controls the technology, yes. So, basically, the answer is that the EU subsidiary is not independent. Consider Lavabit's story, the US admin would have no issue asking Amazon to trojanize their tech. > their reputation will be forever ruined That happened 20 years ago. > It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that. They wouldn't have a say in the matter.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  > If so, it's subject to the CLOUD act, and therefore, not compatible with EU rules. I'm assuming the CLOUD act is the entire reason why they're explicitly going with European-only staff. That way Amazon can honestly say it has no operational control to violate EU law because there's no American employee they can command. Operational control isn't all-or-nothing. European employees will do whatever Amazon tells them unless it breaks European law, in which case they won't. Amazon is intentionally setting it up in a way that it won't be able to do anything about that.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Or they’re attempting to ‘green wash’ something that US parent can definitely actually control, so they have some plausible deniability. It is not even close to the first time something like that has occurred.
  - pyrale 1y ago
    > Operational control isn't all-or-nothing. When the US government has no issue asking a company to hand over its tls keys, it really is.
    - crazygringo 1y ago
      If the company has no keys to hand over, because they gave them to the Europeans, then obviously that's quite a different situation. The US can ask. That doesn't mean it gets what it wants. The government loses in court all the time.
ljm 1y ago
So Amazon becomes a supranational entity. You should be ashamed of yourself for shilling for this shit. Curtis Yarvin would be proud.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mdavid626 1y ago
So no backdoors, right? Pinky swear?
benterix 1y ago
> their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever Unfortunately this is not how it works. A cynic in me would say just the opposite, looking how Crowdstrike is doing now after causing one of the biggest technological disasters of the decade by their incompetence.
dns_snek 1y ago
> Sure Amazon or any cloud provider could build a back door, but that will eventually be discovered whether by hacker or whistleblower and their reputation will be forever ruined and they'll lose all corporate and government business forever. It's not in Amazon's corporate self-interest to allow a back door like that. In which alternate reality is that? This already happened with Snowden's leaks when we learned about Microsoft's, Apple's, and Google's participation in the PRISM program and their market dominance has only grown since then. There were no consequences, the market didn't care, the shareholders didn't care, their customers largely didn't care, and they didn't lose any sleep over it.