4 ms·

Some of the other commenters seem to underestimate the extreme shift, caused by the NSA scandal, in how the US is perceived in some parts of Europe (and I guess

Some of the other commenters seem to underestimate the extreme shift, caused by the NSA scandal, in how the US is perceived in some parts of Europe (and I guess Brasil). NSA surveillance (and hacking!) is pevasive of all that is digital. They even directly attack private individuals in Europe, considering them as worthless pawns. (Don't believe me? Google "Belgacom Hack") To those of us living in countries that had to struggle to rid themselves of the surveillance state, this _feels_ like enemy action. So why should people over here perceive a country that has declared them fair game to its large security apparatus be anything other than an enemy? Do not underestimate the consequences of the NSA actions. The mistrust that is growing right now could undo important parts of the digital globalization.

arethuza 13y ago
I was talking to someone who works for a company that does cloud hosting of very high end business applications (i.e. specialized finance systems) and he said they were seeing a lot of European companies starting to look at moving their hosting from the US to the EU - largely due to the recent NSA revelations. I must admit that this rather surprised me - but I have no reason to doubt him.
- pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
  uh... i do lots of "very high end specialized finance systems" for the EU, and their laws specifically prohibit hosting servers in the US. even if the servers are located in EU, i'm not allowed to connect to them directly from the US to set them up, so i had to go over there once to set them up, and then later i just screen shared with an admin there (barcelona) and took over the keyboard and mouse on his computer to do updates. so either you're lying, your friend is lying, or they are breaking EU law.
- bobzibub 13y ago
  There are other costs outside of the US also: Given that the NSA is so aggressive (all pipes being suspect now) the changes politically demanded will: -lessen convenience of all software and increasing the costs for users to interact with it in terms of time and complexity. -building and deploying security solutions can be expensive especially to those products that do not lend themselves to security--more engineering increases costs. -increase in cpu cycles as we all increase key sizes and introduce encryption where once there was none, or limited for authentication only. Id bet this will be a small drag on the world economy and certainly a drag on the world software industry. It could be thought of as a world wide tax.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    There could be a slightly brighter side to it, if you consider the additional security to be a good thing.
- grecy 13y ago
  > I must admit that this rather surprised me Why does it surprise you? It's come to light the American government is sifting through everything it can get it's hands on. Any rational person would take steps to try and prevent their important data being looked at.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    The NSA's job has been to spy on foreigners since the Cold War. I don't understand how the new revelations are some how a big surprise? Also moving your cloud hosting to an EU country is probably going to buy you exactly zero safety. The majority of the internet traffic in the world routes through the USA regardless or origin / destination.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      Also moving your cloud hosting to an EU country is probably going to buy you exactly zero safety. Economically it may have some effect though. A lot of this is sending a message as much as securing anything. edit - also, anyone serious who is switching from US servers over this issue at the moment will be unlikely to be only switching servers, it will most likely be just the first part of a general security upgrade.
    - fizz_and_buzz 13y ago
      > The majority of the internet traffic in the world routes through the USA regardless or origin / destination. I was suspicious of your claim since this didn't line up with my experience of using traceroute. So, I don't think this is really true anymore; especially for Europe. Have a look at this infografic [1] by the NYtimes linked from this 2008 (!) article [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.web.html http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/08/30/business/30pipe... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html
    - scoot 13y ago
      Foreign governments, yes. But the wholesale monitoring of the public at large (every last one of us) is what came as a bit of a revalation.
- pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
  if he is hosting financial data on EU citizens using a US cloud provider, he is breaking the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive PG is a BUTT
- malandrew 13y ago
  Finance is all about informational asymmetries. If I traded on informational asymmetries, I'd consider the US government surveillance apparatus to be a huge threat. At the end of the day, the analysts at Fort Meade are probably the least worrisome of the people with access to all this data. The biggest threat are all the consultancies involved in the US intelligence industry. Companies like Booz Allen simply have too many ties to the financial industry and the security industry, and anyone who has worked in finance knows that Chinese walls and other mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest are simply security theater.
bananacurve 13y ago
The feigned outrage of EU leaders who have data sharing agreements with the NSA is not credible. Europe has outsourced most of their defense and intelligence for good reason, why do everything twice when the West is cooperating with each other. I'll believe there is a problem when Germany even begins to consider closing a couple US military bases.

arethuza 13y ago

I was talking to someone who works for a company that does cloud hosting of very high end business applications (i.e. specialized finance systems) and he said they were seeing a lot of European companies starting to look at moving their hosting from the US to the EU - largely due to the recent NSA revelations. I must admit that this rather surprised me - but I have no reason to doubt him.

pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
uh... i do lots of "very high end specialized finance systems" for the EU, and their laws specifically prohibit hosting servers in the US. even if the servers are located in EU, i'm not allowed to connect to them directly from the US to set them up, so i had to go over there once to set them up, and then later i just screen shared with an admin there (barcelona) and took over the keyboard and mouse on his computer to do updates. so either you're lying, your friend is lying, or they are breaking EU law.
bobzibub 13y ago
There are other costs outside of the US also: Given that the NSA is so aggressive (all pipes being suspect now) the changes politically demanded will: -lessen convenience of all software and increasing the costs for users to interact with it in terms of time and complexity. -building and deploying security solutions can be expensive especially to those products that do not lend themselves to security--more engineering increases costs. -increase in cpu cycles as we all increase key sizes and introduce encryption where once there was none, or limited for authentication only. Id bet this will be a small drag on the world economy and certainly a drag on the world software industry. It could be thought of as a world wide tax.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  There could be a slightly brighter side to it, if you consider the additional security to be a good thing.
grecy 13y ago
> I must admit that this rather surprised me Why does it surprise you? It's come to light the American government is sifting through everything it can get it's hands on. Any rational person would take steps to try and prevent their important data being looked at.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  The NSA's job has been to spy on foreigners since the Cold War. I don't understand how the new revelations are some how a big surprise? Also moving your cloud hosting to an EU country is probably going to buy you exactly zero safety. The majority of the internet traffic in the world routes through the USA regardless or origin / destination.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    Also moving your cloud hosting to an EU country is probably going to buy you exactly zero safety. Economically it may have some effect though. A lot of this is sending a message as much as securing anything. edit - also, anyone serious who is switching from US servers over this issue at the moment will be unlikely to be only switching servers, it will most likely be just the first part of a general security upgrade.
  - fizz_and_buzz 13y ago
    > The majority of the internet traffic in the world routes through the USA regardless or origin / destination. I was suspicious of your claim since this didn't line up with my experience of using traceroute. So, I don't think this is really true anymore; especially for Europe. Have a look at this infografic [1] by the NYtimes linked from this 2008 (!) article [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.web.html http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/08/30/business/30pipe... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html
  - scoot 13y ago
    Foreign governments, yes. But the wholesale monitoring of the public at large (every last one of us) is what came as a bit of a revalation.
pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
if he is hosting financial data on EU citizens using a US cloud provider, he is breaking the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive PG is a BUTT
malandrew 13y ago
Finance is all about informational asymmetries. If I traded on informational asymmetries, I'd consider the US government surveillance apparatus to be a huge threat. At the end of the day, the analysts at Fort Meade are probably the least worrisome of the people with access to all this data. The biggest threat are all the consultancies involved in the US intelligence industry. Companies like Booz Allen simply have too many ties to the financial industry and the security industry, and anyone who has worked in finance knows that Chinese walls and other mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest are simply security theater.

bananacurve 13y ago

The feigned outrage of EU leaders who have data sharing agreements with the NSA is not credible. Europe has outsourced most of their defense and intelligence for good reason, why do everything twice when the West is cooperating with each other. I'll believe there is a problem when Germany even begins to consider closing a couple US military bases.