US: We spied on you Europeans but we can still be chums. Right? High-ranking Eurocrats are expected to begin crisis talks on digital surveillance with American officials on Monday. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė, whose country will take up the EU presidency today , said she hoped to piggyback discussions on Edward Snowden and the PRISM system on top of trade talks. The EU and the …
European State: "How dare you justify snooping on our data!"
NSA: "We will share the data that has IP addresses within your country, with you! Half price..."
European State: "Cool."
Subesquent press release in European State press: "We have let America know our feelings on this matter and have come to a satisfactory outcome. Our citizens can now know that they are protected due to our dilligence and fortitude"
European State Secret Service: Hey, we stop forking out so much money for our own snooping - NSA is giving it away!
NSA: Ok, dodged that one. We now have extra funds for some decent PR for recuiting...
/cynicism
USA: Ok, "I understand you're annoyed. What with us looking at what your citizens are up to."
France: "We are shocked, shocked I say"
Germany: "It is unacceptable"
UK: "Oh, that's all right, old chap. We knew you were up to something. We got the gen from the NSA memos to the President".
I doubt that the NSA deliberately spy on Boeing to give the data to the DGCE,
But I suspect that GCHQ and the UK security services consider the special relationship with America as more important than British industry. So I don't imagine that they filter out interceptions on British companies before handign data over to the USA
except of course for the ones who can't because they don't have the means to do so.
To the extent the trade negotiations discuss spying, it will be kabuki theater to reassure everyone. They can't actually dig too deep, because they can't publicly disclose that for the first time in his life, what The Big 0 has been saying publicly is true: everybody spies on each other, even if the public proclamation is that gentleman don't read each others mail.
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In additional private meetings:
NSA (anonymous via third party): "You know we are simply amazed at how many MEP's and Eurocrats are kiddie porn site browsers / tax dodgers / or engaged in extra marital wa-hey. It would be a shame if that information were to leak. Fortunately we have your help keeping people like Snowden in check. Don't we [no question mark]"
MEP's and Eurocrats: "So, pretty please, do you agree to our plan."
NSA (anonymous via third party): "We'll think about it. Don't call s we'll call you. Oh and by the way, the US government delegation is offering really good trade terms. Agree to them."
Did someone mention snouts and troughs?
"It is the sight of Squealer walking upright, on his hind legs. At this moment, all of the pigs leave the farmhouse in single file, all upright on two legs. Finally, Napoleon emerges from the farmhouse, upright and carrying a whip."
From: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/animalfarm/10/
"If anybody is more concerned about their current use of the cloud because of the Snowden business, then they really walked into the situation with their eyes shut."
The whole world does it. People just dont care less. As long as whatever it is suits them, they dont care what or how its being done unless it goes wrong.
It's deserved.
The EU will say : "please... pretty please... pretty please with sugar on top ?"
And the US will say : "aarghh... allright then... we won't do it again... pinky swear !"
And the snooping will continue anyway, because the USA thinks it's job is to police the globe...
They police the globe because they get asked to - ex: Syria's civilian population begging for US intervention. And before you go "What about Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sometimes when you mess with the bull you get the horns. Price of doing business.
But you are correct. Nothing below the surface will change, just a lot of words saying they will.
"Syria's civilian population begging for US intervention."
BS - the Syrian people have seen the effects of US humanitarian intervention in Libya, and it is the last thing they want. Those screaming for intervention and arms are al Qaeda supporters. NATO is training and arming (via 3rd parties) al Qaeda, even thinking of handing over stingers to the 'right' people. What could possibly go wrong!
".....that's why their signs are written in Arabic AND English....." I was witness to a very carefully prepared "spontaneous" protest in Beiruit in the '80s, complete with marshals that guided the "protestors" past the CNN camera crew, and made sure they were holding their banners up the right way seeing as the carriers couldn't speak a word of the English slogans painted on the banners.
The US got the policing the globe job because - once theyd gotten rid of the isolationists - they had to go through with that navy "second to none" and an impoverished Britain had decided having an Empire was too much bloody hard work there was no one else and it could afford to. Not that it was a good idea.
Perhaps if the US had not had an unfettered post-WWII industrial dominance, then perhaps there would have been four or more major powers rather than three (with one aided by their two mates).
Ah, if only someone had suggested that round windows looked better on the Comet, perhaps someone else's aviation industry could have discovered metal fatigue the hard way and Vickers would be celebrating 100 years of crossing the Atlantic....
I had the unalloyed pleasure of going into the Nimrod at our local aviation museum on Tuesday. Comets were kind of in mind.
The 50s and 60s were a glorious time for aviation, if you ignore all the crashes, project cancellations, companies folding and so forth. An out-pouring of ideas never to be repeated. By comparison what have we had in the last 20? Improvements in efficiency and construction but no really new concepts. IMHO.
We KNOW its out job to police the globe because every stinking time you guys get upset, you come wailing to Daddy about it. Personally I'd like to let the lot of you stew in your own juices since you never want to do the smallest thing to prevent it before it reaches catastrophic levels, but we're stuck in the stew too.
Pisses all over you when you least expect it.
Just don't sign up with any Cloud hosting company that is American or has an American subsidiary.
One with no US presence at all preferably. That way they can't use US laws to bypass EU/local ones to snoop on your data.
Then the bead of GCHQ will say,
Just be good chaps and send everything to/from the cloud in clear and don't use that silly encryption. That way we won't need to snoop on your cloud systems and we will be positive that you aren't a terrorist/paeophile/ general bad guy that needs 'taking out'.
What a load of D**kheads if they think we will fall for that one.
tying trade talks to this, while hypocritically claiming shock yet doing the same things themselves, just makes governments look petty and narrow-minded, and politicians look like fools. Next they'll do something completely stupid like tie the trade negotiations to protection for films / tv for purely selfish (and blatantly silly) reasons. Oh, wait ...
When I looked into cloud storage 2 or 3 years ago before all the hype I chose Humyo - a UK company - precisely because they were based in London, NOT the US. Which put my data under UK data protection laws. it was later bought by Trend and moved to Germany. I closed my account.
I use my own private NAS now that's not online and secure portable storage. Don't trust anyone, me. Cynical old git.
Nuf Sed.
"When I looked into cloud storage 2 or 3 years ago before all the hype I chose Humyo - a UK company - precisely because they were based in London, NOT the US."
And that, ironically, refutes the whole basis of the Cloud - that you don't care (or, perhaps, even know) where you computing is done and your data is stored.
But if you read about the cyberwar capabilities the US has and is planning to extend, you start to realise that data may be no safer on your own system than in the cloud anyway. For example, and just as a taster:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/18/opinion/schneier-cyberwar-policy/index.html
and I assume the US aren't alone in this. Would anyone like to 100% guarantee their system can resist an attack from a state as determined as this to get at your data?
Increasingly, I think the solution has to be technological as no-one can apparently be trusted with anyone's data these days. What technologies are needed, I have no idea, unfortunately.
"But if you read about the cyberwar capabilities the US has and is planning to extend, you start to realise that data may be no safer on your own system than in the cloud anyway....." You need to start thinking about how the NSA et al will be targetting clouds, how they will be selecting targets for more aggressive monitoring and possible hacking. I expect their selection criteria will be something like this:
1. Are the actual cloud systems in a non-friendly (i.e., one that does not allow NSA/GCHQ snooping)?
2. Is the cloud provider owned or funded by a person or persons of interest (at the moment, that probably includes being funded by a Qatari-based investment bank)?
3. Do other people of interest already buy services from that cloud?
4. Are there encrypted streams not using OTS encryption tools exiting or entering the cloud in question (and where do they go to)?
5. Do any of those encrypte streams exit to TOR, non-friendly nations, or other clouds/companies/people already of interest?
Other possible reasons for the NSA to take an interest are if your cloud provider employs only foreigners from certain groups (such as Pakistan). Whilst you may not know these thing when you sign up for a cloud, and they are unlikely to tell you up front as your legitimate business may be being used to provide cover for their nefarious activities, when the Police turn up with a search warrant it is your business that will be offline whilst all the servers and storage are searched.
"High-ranking Eurocrats are expected to begin crisis talks on digital surveillance with American officials on Monday."
Yeah and if by some freaking miracle anything other than "Sorry we bothered you." comes out of the mouths of the toadying EU politicians on Monday, pigs will fly, the sky will suddenly piss page-3 birds and chocolate coins, and rainbows will come out my arse!
Waste of time them going isn't it? We all know full well what's going to happen, the US gov and the NSA will bend the EU delegates over the table for a damn good caning for their insolence!
(is that from "Snatch" ?)
I have spent the past 3 years banging on to all and sundry about the risks of cloud storage *Especially* when a US company is involved (note: physical location is irrelevant. US companies have to do Uncle Sams bidding *wherever* they are based.). Mainly due to have actually read the PATRIOT act. Mostly to a "yeah yeah" from customers.
*Now* they start bitching as if nobody told them. Well *I* did. Shame they didn't listen.
We can absolutely trust them to send regular summaries to the NSA, and fork over everything any time the NSA so much as twitches its pinky.
Funny how, when it comes to our privacy and personal life, companies fall over themselves to obey gubbermint spooks, but when it comes to paying taxes, no spook can seem to find them anymore to bring in the dollars.
Leaves me baffled, I must say.
So let's see the US can walk in to a data centre and say open your draws to me baby anytime they want? Nope, big fail they need to have a warrant from a federal court issued by a judge who has heard the reason why they want the information. Now consider the UK.
Spy walks in to minister's office and says sign this bit of paper I need to go look at the files of some bloke or other who telephoned his granny a known member of Saga that terrorist organisation (always banging on about the rights of old people). Minister says oh alright then off you go sunny jim.
Now which of those two scenarios is scarier? When you talk about the PATRIOT Act you talk about something focussed on terrorism, when you talk about RIPA you talk about people lying about where they live in respect to a school!
All countries have cottoned on to the fact that they can capture the metadata related to telephone and internet traffic and pretty much every country with a few spare million is doing it to a greater or lesser extent, the big issue is what are the legal controls around this and believe it or not (and most won't) the US actually has slightly better legal controls over this than most of the European states where State Security falls in to a nice grey zone where the DPA or its equivalent in the rest of the EU States does not apply.
I guess you haven't been listening?
The scenario goes
The NSA can walk into any data centre in the US , say "we have a piece of paper here (which is not a federal warrant) that lets us take all your business records. By the way, our secret court has defined anything on servers run by a business as business records. Oh, and if you tell anyone about any of this you will go to jail and we will ruin your life, so don't try to check on that definition."
When you talk about the PATRIOT act you talk about spying, wholesale, on pretty much all internet traffic.
Oh yeah, I'm sure that's used only to stop terrorism, and not to:
Steal inventions
Protect US financial interests
Blackmail highly (or well) placed people to do what the US wants.
Keep track of the movements of foreign dignitaries
Because the US is such a trustworthy country that would never do anyone any harm.
You also know that those RIPA requests you mentioned where people were abusing it to find out about the school thing? You understand you heard about that, right? It wasn't so secret they had to make a secret court to secretly decide the secret law interpretations that allowed them to do that.
@Justicesays
"It wasn't so secret they had to make a secret court to secretly decide the secret law interpretations that allowed them to do that."
So that crumb they tossed at the public is proof they're not doing wrong/unethical/illegal?!?
What exactly is your point?
As a business ask yourself is there a US competitor who'd like to know X about my business?
Will that information be in your new (cloud based) system?
How well connected are they to the US govt?
How well connect could they become if it meant getting a complete dump of your system for their perusal?
Still reckon your new cloud based system is cheap?
Let's face it, a lot of these European nations are clients of intelligence that the NSA scoops up. These upcoming discussions will in essence mostly be about managing the PR aspect of widespread data surveillance. Can't have those annoying leaks letting the hoi poloi know who is snooping on them, can we?
(I always say that the worst thing about being cynical is the moment you realize that cynicism is the smart play)
And I am sure it was a nerd working for a security agency somewhere who came up with the original idea for the cloud.
Agency boss: I wish we had easier access to everybody's data instead of having to wait to intercept it when they send something by email!
Nerd: Why don't we build a huge data centre and rent vast amounts of space cheaply to every one, then we can build our own back door into it from the start.
Agency boss: Great idea! here's a few squillion set it up!
That has always been my view of the cloud, security wise the dumbest idea I have ever heard of.
There is no difference between securing your data and securing your house, if someone really wants to get in they will, it is just a matter of making it as difficult as possible so that it begins to use up too much time to be worth it but nothing 100% secure.
If you want good security keeps things under your hat, it is still possible for people to access but it's a whole lot better than leaving it lying around in somebody else's warehouse where you can't see who is trying to get in.
Unless of course you're in a position as a cloud provider that in developing such strong links with the spooks, it helps underpin your continuation.? These 'links' between the giants of the web and politically managed secret organisations, forged through data sharing, will make the political elite far less likely to permit or authorise any strategies or actions that might threaten or restrict the relationship or the relationship with the organisation that's cooperating so willingly.
People with power have a very singular priority, keeping it. In that regard the wholesale leaking of information pushes buttons on both sides of that deal.
If you've never had it you don't miss it. But they have had the ability to acquire such vast swathes of data. And you can bet your last penny that they don't want to lose it.
Google can do a bit of wireless sniffing with their mapping cars and the EU privacy commissioner goes apeshit.
But now we find Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook et al send absolutely everything they have over to the US spooks, and the EU privacy commissioner seems to be on holiday or something.
FFS, if you can fine Microsoft hundreds of millions of Euros for forgetting to put some browser selection screen on Windows, then this has got to be worth billions in fines. You may not be able to target the NSA, but you can sure go after the collaborators in this.
This might actually make the US as a whole think twice about co-opting big US companies in on this, and it might make these companies a little more principled in future too.
And if it does, well, at least we can get back some of the billions they didn't pay in tax.
> As far as I know, only in the US is there constitutional protection
> against spying on your own citizens.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/03/dotcom_nz_pm_clash_over_spy_laws/ says:
"Like spy agencies in many other countries, the GCSB is prevented by law from spying on locals."
Anonymous Coward of 19:42 GMT, if by “constitutional protection against spying on your own citizens” you mean the US constitution’s fourth amendment, then that protection depends entirely upon how the word unreasonable is defined, and the legislation and case law constructed upon that potentially shifting foundation. Depending upon how one defines spying, article 10 of the German constitution, article 13 of the Swiss constitution, articles 9 and 9A of the Greek constitution, article 23 of the Russian constittion, and even article 79 of the constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea might be worth reviewing; there are doubtlessly equivalent articles in other constitutions worldwide.
Article 25 of the Iranian constitution gets a special mention: unlike any of the constitutions mentioned above, it explicitly forbids all forms of covert investigation — “except as provided by law”. If you happen to be in Iran, keep yourself informed on the relevant legislation there.
As ever, a constitution’s protections are only as useful as their enforcement.
In most of European countries, if government spooks spy on citizens without a court order, said spooks -if caught- will end before a judge, and face serious charges. If a minister is responsible for the spying -and fails to find a suitable scapegoat- said minister will have to resign, and even has a chance -albeit small- of serving jail time.
Now compare this with the actual situation in the USA, where they even had the gall to make retroactive laws that allow private companies to spy on citizens at the whim of the Government, without any judiciary oversight. Or with the infamous gag orders that forbid the victims and unwilling participants of this from discussing the matter with anybody else, even with their lawyers.
The potential for abuse -and I'm using the word 'potential' in a very loose sense- is astronomically high.
It would be a good time before the talks for Snowden or someone with full access to that information to release it to almost every newspaper in the world. I'm hoping it has blackmail files on leaders and politicians and that is the real reason the NSA/FED are so pissed because it's their leverage and without it they're screwed.
Just because they didn't realize that communications has been monitored for decades and it increased after 9-11, for good reason, now people are outraged that authorities have been doing their best to protect people from more terrorists attacks, which they have done in the UK as well as the US. If you don't want your communication monitored then don't ever use a phone, the internet, snail mail. Just sit in your home and rot away.
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