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Am I the only one who is getting annoyed at these zero effort sky is falling NSA comments? Every single damn submission on the front page has some meaningless

by octo_t 13y ago

Am I the only one who is getting annoyed at these zero effort sky is falling NSA comments? Every single damn submission on the front page has some meaningless hand wringing over the exact same issue and it is 100% unproductive.

greendata 13y ago
I agree they aren't productive. However, the fact that we keep hearing about it, especially from those not from the US, is informative. There is a German IT manager posting about how he's like to use this but can't due to the NSA spying. The NSA is taking money and markets out of our hands and may cause products like this to fail.
- mikeash 13y ago
  No, there is a German IT manager posting about how he can't use it due to EU data protection laws. Nothing to do with NSA spying. Intelligent discussion about the issues of cloud computing, including data protection laws and spying, is useful and welcome. But posts that basically boil down to "LOL NSA" are not intelligent.
  - andrewcooke 13y ago
    did you read his detailed response abut safe harbour? i thought "it is now clear" was a direct reference to NSA. is it not? see here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500
    - mikeash 13y ago
      You're right, my bad. My overall point remains: intelligent discussion like that is great, "LOL NSA" is not.
nisa 13y ago
It may be unproductive but it highlights a paradigm change. If you host your Desktop in the cloud at Amazon your data is completely at the mercy of Amazon. This can be an issue for health-related data or customer data. It is a fact now that there are secret courts in the US that disallow Amazon from telling you that someone else accessed your data. I'm not sure about law enforcement but they can probably gain access to that data you stored there too. As a business from a foreign country you lost control over your data. Some businesses can afford that - a lot can't.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  I own my own business and jokes aside (which it was) I won't be putting anything I don't have to into the cloud and in the mid/long term I'll be moving stuff back in house (Google apps for email was convenient but not essential etc). As I'm in the UK pulling stuff out the US seems vaguely ridiculous if I move to another cloud provider anywhere as GCHQ has shown to be remarkably (frighteningly in fact) efficient (there has to be some humour in their about the government been more efficient at monitoring people than at just about anything else...) so back in house is pretty much the way to go. I don't have anything that would interest anyone I don't think (We are a small company developing software for the renewables industry) but its not really about the nothing to hide mantra so much as restoring some of the balance and if that costs me a bit extra so be it.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  There have always been worries about hosting your data with a 3rd party NSA hyperbole or not. This is why you follow HIPPA standards if they are applicable, or ensure AWS is compliant with a standard you need to adhere to: http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/ http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/ Your company will always have to value the risk/reward tradeoff of hosting with a 3rd party and it has nothing to do with secret courts or any other silly end of the world predictions, and has to do with the fact that your data is outside of your direct control.
  - nisa 13y ago
    > NSA hyperbole Where is the hyperbole? http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files > secret courts or any other silly end of the world predictions As far as I know this is unfortunately not a prediction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige... You may have no problems with these things. I'm not a US citizen and these things do matter in my decision to host my data in the US. These problems are not new. The US never had a strong privacy law. Taken all this into account it's hard sell for any business outside of the US to use US based cloud services. That's all I wanted to illustrate.
ihsw 13y ago
Eternal vigilance, that is the price we pay for freedom.
vacri 13y ago
Give it a few more months and it'll expire naturally. Such is the way today with our scandal-fatigue.

by octo_t 13y ago

greendata 13y ago

I agree they aren't productive. However, the fact that we keep hearing about it, especially from those not from the US, is informative. There is a German IT manager posting about how he's like to use this but can't due to the NSA spying. The NSA is taking money and markets out of our hands and may cause products like this to fail.

mikeash 13y ago
No, there is a German IT manager posting about how he can't use it due to EU data protection laws. Nothing to do with NSA spying. Intelligent discussion about the issues of cloud computing, including data protection laws and spying, is useful and welcome. But posts that basically boil down to "LOL NSA" are not intelligent.
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  did you read his detailed response abut safe harbour? i thought "it is now clear" was a direct reference to NSA. is it not? see here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500
  - mikeash 13y ago
    You're right, my bad. My overall point remains: intelligent discussion like that is great, "LOL NSA" is not.

nisa 13y ago

It may be unproductive but it highlights a paradigm change. If you host your Desktop in the cloud at Amazon your data is completely at the mercy of Amazon. This can be an issue for health-related data or customer data. It is a fact now that there are secret courts in the US that disallow Amazon from telling you that someone else accessed your data. I'm not sure about law enforcement but they can probably gain access to that data you stored there too. As a business from a foreign country you lost control over your data. Some businesses can afford that - a lot can't.

noir_lord 13y ago
I own my own business and jokes aside (which it was) I won't be putting anything I don't have to into the cloud and in the mid/long term I'll be moving stuff back in house (Google apps for email was convenient but not essential etc). As I'm in the UK pulling stuff out the US seems vaguely ridiculous if I move to another cloud provider anywhere as GCHQ has shown to be remarkably (frighteningly in fact) efficient (there has to be some humour in their about the government been more efficient at monitoring people than at just about anything else...) so back in house is pretty much the way to go. I don't have anything that would interest anyone I don't think (We are a small company developing software for the renewables industry) but its not really about the nothing to hide mantra so much as restoring some of the balance and if that costs me a bit extra so be it.
res0nat0r 13y ago
There have always been worries about hosting your data with a 3rd party NSA hyperbole or not. This is why you follow HIPPA standards if they are applicable, or ensure AWS is compliant with a standard you need to adhere to: http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/ http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/ Your company will always have to value the risk/reward tradeoff of hosting with a 3rd party and it has nothing to do with secret courts or any other silly end of the world predictions, and has to do with the fact that your data is outside of your direct control.
- nisa 13y ago
  > NSA hyperbole Where is the hyperbole? http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files > secret courts or any other silly end of the world predictions As far as I know this is unfortunately not a prediction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige... You may have no problems with these things. I'm not a US citizen and these things do matter in my decision to host my data in the US. These problems are not new. The US never had a strong privacy law. Taken all this into account it's hard sell for any business outside of the US to use US based cloud services. That's all I wanted to illustrate.

ihsw 13y ago

Eternal vigilance, that is the price we pay for freedom.

vacri 13y ago

Give it a few more months and it'll expire naturally. Such is the way today with our scandal-fatigue.