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> How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. I honestly doubt 99% of

by d23 13y ago

> How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. That's not to say that attitude is right or wrong, but it's probably the last thing on most peoples' minds.

dmix 13y ago
> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. The NSA is hardly the only organization/party who could exploit a service like this. Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing. I recently attended a talk on wiretaps by a lawyer recently, and when there is an investigation going on, police used to tap 1-2 cellphones a few years ago. Now 50+ people at a time are brought up on a warrant. Including a lot of people who aren't related to the crime (for ex. the targets mother). So who is the "1%" of that 99%? Who should care about their privacy? How do consumers know they aren't in that 1%? The answer is they can't and they don't know. But ultimately, they just don't care. Until it: A) affects them personally (or to someone they know), B) someone explains why it matters (if they have a technical knowledge gap) C) widely publicized examples of abuses become part of mainstream news Those three combined could eventually become widespread enough to destroy services like this. But right now, yes, the risk is still minimal in terms of public perception.
- cantankerous 13y ago
  "Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing." They can also get a warrant and come to your house and go through all of your stuff (including your personal computer) there. Of course you'd know, but not until it happened. There's no real "protection" from a legal search warrant.
  - dmix 13y ago
    Search warrant != wiretap warrant. The privacy implications and constitutional externalities are much larger (and easily abused) when it involves the interception of voice calls, emails, sms, locations, etc and now potentially all computer activity that happens in memory. Wiretaps involve analyzing past data and actively monitoring new communications. Including every person you call or every website you visit. Police often have to delete 99%+ of intercepted data because it's irrelevant to the case. That's different in many ways from a single physical search warrant on a house or computer. And now they are becoming the go-to investigative tool for every criminal case...
    - tedunangst 13y ago
      I'd wager police also have to ignore 99%+ of the junk in your house when they execute a regular search warrant. They're going to look through your underwear drawer, but they're not actually going to confiscate all your underwear.
      - dmix 13y ago
        99% of the things sitting in any persons house at any moment is not as private as their ongoing phone calls, emails, websites they visit, etc. Nor does it simultaneously invade other peoples privacy in the process (any person they communicate with)... over a multi-month period. Using your analogy, the 99% of things the police are supposed to ignore, such as their clothing drawers, does not carry equal weight in terms of privacy. I'm not unique in having this position, lawyers/judges/courts view it as a much broader breach of privacy as well and they (often) require much stronger legal restrictions for the police than a standard search warrant.
  - Angostura 13y ago
    That doesn't really scale does it. I imagine the tax man, however could set up some very nice cloud-based big data trawls for documents containing evidence of undeclared income.
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    Totally different level of scrutiny. Your home is your castle, and the police need to demonstrate cause to violate the sanctity of your home. The scope of warrants is usually limited as well. The police need to look for specific things. Also, unless the police demonstrate that you are associated with the crime, the police won't get a warrant to search your home because your brother committed a crime. Third party requests for data are different, these often only require court orders or subpeonas, which don't receive nearly as much scrutiny. Your information may be accessed by an investigation relating to another person, for instance. Your best privacy protection is to store stuff at home and access it remotely using an encrypted link, and to store your credential securely. (Think smartcard.)
r0h1n 13y ago
> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care But the decision to purchase this will be made by businesses. Are you equally confident 99% of businesses won't care about literally 100% of their corporate information sitting with Amazon, which in the past has shown its willingness to subject international customers to US pressures? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/amazon-and-wikileaks-first-amendment-only-strong https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/amazon-and-wikileaks-f...
- howeyc 13y ago
  Yes. The growth of cloud (storing all your important shit on hard drives owned and operated by someone else) has been increasing these past few years. I thought the world had gone batshit insane even before the NSA leaks, but it appears I was part of an incredibly small minority. Some people may have come to our side, but not many. Because really, if you don't care that Company Y has access to your shit, what difference does another third-party make? People that think like me are definitely the minority, unfortunately.
glesica 13y ago
This service really doesn't strike me as something the average consumer would use, at least not directly. This seems to be targeted at businesses, which are much more likely to care about potential NSA or other similar snooping.
- mattzito 13y ago
  Here's the reality, as I see it - most businesses, that is to say, (US) commercial enterprises that operate within the confines of the USA already comply with any and all search warrants, FISA letters, government requests, and so on. In fact, most of the traditional large enterprises in the US keep teams of people around to operate policy and software solutions solely to archive and protect data that may apply to government and civil investigations. Large enterprises are concerned about individual actors - "hackers", competitors, unscrupulous investors who want to gain access to sensitive information. If the government comes calling, they'll just give up the information, because why do they care? The vast majority of large companies in the US don't store sensitive information on behalf of their users like Google does. If Exxon-Mobil can save $30m/year by running VDI on Amazon, they will - if the government wanted the contents of any employee laptop, they'd turn it over anyway. It's end-users, service providers, and politically active organizations who don't want to put their compute on centralized infrastructure.
pron 13y ago
> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. True, but some of the rest (like me) are more concerned with Amazon (or Google, or Facebook, or Apple) having access to their information than with the NSA. Personally, I'd rather have a government spying on me than a corporation.

by d23 13y ago

dmix 13y ago

> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. The NSA is hardly the only organization/party who could exploit a service like this. Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing. I recently attended a talk on wiretaps by a lawyer recently, and when there is an investigation going on, police used to tap 1-2 cellphones a few years ago. Now 50+ people at a time are brought up on a warrant. Including a lot of people who aren't related to the crime (for ex. the targets mother). So who is the "1%" of that 99%? Who should care about their privacy? How do consumers know they aren't in that 1%? The answer is they can't and they don't know. But ultimately, they just don't care. Until it: A) affects them personally (or to someone they know), B) someone explains why it matters (if they have a technical knowledge gap) C) widely publicized examples of abuses become part of mainstream news Those three combined could eventually become widespread enough to destroy services like this. But right now, yes, the risk is still minimal in terms of public perception.

cantankerous 13y ago
"Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing." They can also get a warrant and come to your house and go through all of your stuff (including your personal computer) there. Of course you'd know, but not until it happened. There's no real "protection" from a legal search warrant.
- dmix 13y ago
  Search warrant != wiretap warrant. The privacy implications and constitutional externalities are much larger (and easily abused) when it involves the interception of voice calls, emails, sms, locations, etc and now potentially all computer activity that happens in memory. Wiretaps involve analyzing past data and actively monitoring new communications. Including every person you call or every website you visit. Police often have to delete 99%+ of intercepted data because it's irrelevant to the case. That's different in many ways from a single physical search warrant on a house or computer. And now they are becoming the go-to investigative tool for every criminal case...
  - tedunangst 13y ago
    I'd wager police also have to ignore 99%+ of the junk in your house when they execute a regular search warrant. They're going to look through your underwear drawer, but they're not actually going to confiscate all your underwear.
    - dmix 13y ago
      99% of the things sitting in any persons house at any moment is not as private as their ongoing phone calls, emails, websites they visit, etc. Nor does it simultaneously invade other peoples privacy in the process (any person they communicate with)... over a multi-month period. Using your analogy, the 99% of things the police are supposed to ignore, such as their clothing drawers, does not carry equal weight in terms of privacy. I'm not unique in having this position, lawyers/judges/courts view it as a much broader breach of privacy as well and they (often) require much stronger legal restrictions for the police than a standard search warrant.
- Angostura 13y ago
  That doesn't really scale does it. I imagine the tax man, however could set up some very nice cloud-based big data trawls for documents containing evidence of undeclared income.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  Totally different level of scrutiny. Your home is your castle, and the police need to demonstrate cause to violate the sanctity of your home. The scope of warrants is usually limited as well. The police need to look for specific things. Also, unless the police demonstrate that you are associated with the crime, the police won't get a warrant to search your home because your brother committed a crime. Third party requests for data are different, these often only require court orders or subpeonas, which don't receive nearly as much scrutiny. Your information may be accessed by an investigation relating to another person, for instance. Your best privacy protection is to store stuff at home and access it remotely using an encrypted link, and to store your credential securely. (Think smartcard.)

r0h1n 13y ago

> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care But the decision to purchase this will be made by businesses. Are you equally confident 99% of businesses won't care about literally 100% of their corporate information sitting with Amazon, which in the past has shown its willingness to subject international customers to US pressures? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/amazon-and-wikileaks-first-amendment-only-strong https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/amazon-and-wikileaks-f...

howeyc 13y ago
Yes. The growth of cloud (storing all your important shit on hard drives owned and operated by someone else) has been increasing these past few years. I thought the world had gone batshit insane even before the NSA leaks, but it appears I was part of an incredibly small minority. Some people may have come to our side, but not many. Because really, if you don't care that Company Y has access to your shit, what difference does another third-party make? People that think like me are definitely the minority, unfortunately.

glesica 13y ago

This service really doesn't strike me as something the average consumer would use, at least not directly. This seems to be targeted at businesses, which are much more likely to care about potential NSA or other similar snooping.

mattzito 13y ago
Here's the reality, as I see it - most businesses, that is to say, (US) commercial enterprises that operate within the confines of the USA already comply with any and all search warrants, FISA letters, government requests, and so on. In fact, most of the traditional large enterprises in the US keep teams of people around to operate policy and software solutions solely to archive and protect data that may apply to government and civil investigations. Large enterprises are concerned about individual actors - "hackers", competitors, unscrupulous investors who want to gain access to sensitive information. If the government comes calling, they'll just give up the information, because why do they care? The vast majority of large companies in the US don't store sensitive information on behalf of their users like Google does. If Exxon-Mobil can save $30m/year by running VDI on Amazon, they will - if the government wanted the contents of any employee laptop, they'd turn it over anyway. It's end-users, service providers, and politically active organizations who don't want to put their compute on centralized infrastructure.

pron 13y ago

> I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. True, but some of the rest (like me) are more concerned with Amazon (or Google, or Facebook, or Apple) having access to their information than with the NSA. Personally, I'd rather have a government spying on me than a corporation.