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Foreign leaders woke up one day to find that the US now has deep spy penetration into their local populace. Oops. Huge national security fail. They haven’t sa

Foreign leaders woke up one day to find that the US now has deep spy penetration into their local populace. Oops. Huge national security fail. They haven’t said much publicly, but behind closed doors they're scrambling to figure out how to get their pants back up. This is only the very beginning of a huge shift that most of the US is blind to or in denial about. All around the world, in government offices and in business board rooms, leaders are trying to figure out how to get off the US cloud. The US cloud has been compromised and that trust just isn't coming back. The barrier now is not political will, but a lack of local tech talent that can build viable alternatives to the US cloud services. Many countries are kicking themselves now for not growing/poaching tech talent more aggressively. Interesting times when having good web developers is a big national security asset. You'll see the more tech rich countries move first. It's no surprise Germany's a first mover here. Of course, with any big disruption there will be winners and losers. Who the losers will be is obvious - US cloud companies. Sure, they'll still have the US market (which is huge), but international markets will start drying up. Skeptical? Google is hearing a huge sucking sound of money evaporating from Germany right now. Google's so big, they may not notice a few million yet, but I assure you, they will notice eventually. Karmic justice for short-sightedness in not out-lobbying the big defense contractors in Congress. What's comical is how cheap it would be to out-lobby the defense contractors: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D The top contributing defense contractor (Northrop Grumman) only gave about $3 million last year. I'm sure they paid more than that for actual lobbyists, etc, but it's still not even petty cash at Google. Of course, I don't mean to pick only on Google. There are many multi-multi-billion dollar cloud companies in the US that have been easily out-lobbied by the defense industry. It would have been pennies compared to what they'll ultimately lose in the drying-up international markets. So, who will be the winners? While security companies will see a boon, it's the open source companies that I think will see the biggest win. With open, auditable code, countries can set up their own services. Of course, they'll need support and training and that's where the open source companies really shine. It's important to remember that the goal for these countries will rarely be fool-proof privacy for each individual citizen. Instead, the goal is to prevent a foreign power from having deep intimate access to every detail of your populace. Granted, many of these countries will use this transition to just spy on their own citizens. However, other countries will have a good functioning democracy and a citizenry that values privacy and will avoid those abuses. For those countries that have robust protections and engender international trust, they'll have a big business advantage when it comes to foreign consumers.

jbail 13y ago
"However, other countries will have a good functioning democracy and a citizenry that values privacy and will avoid those abuses." Is this just wishful thinking or is there a specific functioning democratic government that should we all trust? My opinion is that nobody should trust any government. Not fully at least. Not their own. Certainly not somebody else's. History has shown this to be a generally prudent position to take. I mean, why should I trust the German government more than the United States government? How about Norway or Kenya or Thailand? I do not think there's some magical country that is about to have a big business advantage based on "trust" because their citizens value privacy (as if that were even measurable). Most likely, countries will just become a touch more insular with their technology, noting that it, like food production, is somewhat of a national security issue.
- junto 13y ago
  We shouldn't ever trust our government, and we should absolutely never trust someone else's. However, I trust the political system more in Germany than I do elsewhere. It is designed (ironically by the Allies) to be stable and multi-partisan. Germany is used to coalitions and party's such as the Piratenpartei and the Greens actually have a voice here. The votes count, every single one.
  - pgeorgi 13y ago
    Every single one, except for those ending up with parties below 5%: Those poor fellows aren't considered at all, which means that they're handled like non-voters, even though they certainly expressed their intent. A ranking vote mechanism would help matters (if your primary vote doesn't end up with a party >=5%, your secondary vote is considered instead, etc.), but that would make the system favor smaller parties: not going to happen.
- mattjaynes 13y ago
  Consider trust as a spectrum instead of a boolean value. For example, Switzerland's long run as THE place where you could put your money and have a high level of trust that it would be safe and it would be anonymous. They've lost their reputation somewhat over the last few years, but what made it THE place where you could trust your money? They had laws, a government, and a citizenry that valued those privacy protections. On top of that, they had centuries of history of adhering to those principles even in the face of consequences from foreign forces (except for travesties like their treatment of Jewish account holders). I don't think many people trusted the Swiss absolutely 100%. It was a small country with little military power and lots of money - which made it vulnerable. However, it was the best alternative at the time if you wanted to store money relatively safely and anonymously. It made the Swiss rich. It was highly lucrative to be THE place to store money. It'll be interesting to see who becomes the Swiss equivalent for data privacy. If it helps, you can think of hosting your email in Germany as simply restoring some of the rights that the US Constitution used to give you. The US most likely doesn't have unfettered access to the German mail servers. If the NSA wants your data, they would actually have to justify it to the Germans. It would be far from perfect, but it could be a bit of a hack to restore some of your 4th amendment rights.

jbail 13y ago

"However, other countries will have a good functioning democracy and a citizenry that values privacy and will avoid those abuses." Is this just wishful thinking or is there a specific functioning democratic government that should we all trust? My opinion is that nobody should trust any government. Not fully at least. Not their own. Certainly not somebody else's. History has shown this to be a generally prudent position to take. I mean, why should I trust the German government more than the United States government? How about Norway or Kenya or Thailand? I do not think there's some magical country that is about to have a big business advantage based on "trust" because their citizens value privacy (as if that were even measurable). Most likely, countries will just become a touch more insular with their technology, noting that it, like food production, is somewhat of a national security issue.

junto 13y ago
We shouldn't ever trust our government, and we should absolutely never trust someone else's. However, I trust the political system more in Germany than I do elsewhere. It is designed (ironically by the Allies) to be stable and multi-partisan. Germany is used to coalitions and party's such as the Piratenpartei and the Greens actually have a voice here. The votes count, every single one.
- pgeorgi 13y ago
  Every single one, except for those ending up with parties below 5%: Those poor fellows aren't considered at all, which means that they're handled like non-voters, even though they certainly expressed their intent. A ranking vote mechanism would help matters (if your primary vote doesn't end up with a party >=5%, your secondary vote is considered instead, etc.), but that would make the system favor smaller parties: not going to happen.
mattjaynes 13y ago
Consider trust as a spectrum instead of a boolean value. For example, Switzerland's long run as THE place where you could put your money and have a high level of trust that it would be safe and it would be anonymous. They've lost their reputation somewhat over the last few years, but what made it THE place where you could trust your money? They had laws, a government, and a citizenry that valued those privacy protections. On top of that, they had centuries of history of adhering to those principles even in the face of consequences from foreign forces (except for travesties like their treatment of Jewish account holders). I don't think many people trusted the Swiss absolutely 100%. It was a small country with little military power and lots of money - which made it vulnerable. However, it was the best alternative at the time if you wanted to store money relatively safely and anonymously. It made the Swiss rich. It was highly lucrative to be THE place to store money. It'll be interesting to see who becomes the Swiss equivalent for data privacy. If it helps, you can think of hosting your email in Germany as simply restoring some of the rights that the US Constitution used to give you. The US most likely doesn't have unfettered access to the German mail servers. If the NSA wants your data, they would actually have to justify it to the Germans. It would be far from perfect, but it could be a bit of a hack to restore some of your 4th amendment rights.