back to article Report: NSA spying deals billion dollar knockout to US cloud prospects

Sustained violations of civil liberties at home and abroad? Yawn. The manifestation of Orwell's nightmares? Snooze. The potential loss of scads and scads of money? Egad, we should really do something about this! That's the gist of a report published on Monday assessing the likely commercial fallout for the US cloud computing …

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  1. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge

    Solution

    The only way that US based cloud storage companies can address clients fears is to create systems where everything is encrypted on the clients hardware with open source software to insure there are no back doors before leaving their premises, stays encrypted in the cloud, and can only be decrypted when back on the clients hardware. And have the whole thing under some type of non-US (and non-cahoots country like the UK) based third party certification.

    Of course, anyone using cloud storage should have been doing all of this anyway from the get go.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Solution

      Not true.

      The two largest userbase clouds are Google's and Apple's (iCloud) and neither of them allow the user to locally encrypt backups with their own password, instead they are encrypted during transit and in place using encryption keys the end user does not control.

      If you're backing up corporate data, sure, you are shipping them encrypted backups, but if you happen to use Windows and the NSA perhaps has a backdoor into it, that wouldn't help you much would it?

      1. Rick Giles
        Linux

        Re: Solution

        And yet another reason to ditch Windows.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Solution

      Fine for storage, but what if you want your cloud company to do email/database/sharepoint etc

      It's hard to do processing on encrypted data without giving them the keys (yes it's theoretically possible but not really)

    3. Tom 35

      Re: Solution

      "declassify more information about the NSA spying programs"

      Not enough. As long as secret gag orders exist they can say anything they want, and no one can trust anything they say.

      - They would have to declare all existing gag orders void.

      - Only allow gag orders for a fixed time for a specified investigation. After that time it's public. No exceptions.

      - And the one that will never happen, it has to apply to EVERYONE, not just people in the US. Not the current "your not a US citizen and your on the wrong side of the gate at the airport so you have no rights".

      Not going to happen.

      Expect some more leaks.

      1. Thorne

        Re: Solution

        "Not enough. As long as secret gag orders exist they can say anything they want, and no one can trust anything they say.

        - They would have to declare all existing gag orders void.

        - Only allow gag orders for a fixed time for a specified investigation. After that time it's public. No exceptions."

        Problem is the NSA might say the gag orders have been removed and secretly gag everyone who tries to say that it is a lie....

    4. TheVogon
      Mushroom

      Re: Solution

      "with open source software to insure there are no back doors "

      Which insurance company would that be with?

      Hmm Open Source - so many vulnerabilities, but at least it's immune for the NSA - oh wait: http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/10/12/15/004235/fbi-alleged-to-have-backdoored-openbsds-ipsec-stack

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Re: Solution

        > Hmm Open Source - so many vulnerabilities, but at least it's immune for the NSA - oh wait:

        Well, that's kinda the point.

        Not much chance of those kind of revelations with closed-source software.

    5. Rick Giles
      Pirate

      Re: Solution

      "Of course, anyone using cloud storage should have been doing all of this anyway from the get go."

      Should read: Of course, anyone using cloud storage should have been beat senseless from the get go...

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Open source does NOT insure no backdoors / spycode

      Take your typical Android phone, a Samsung GS3. Open source, so you're safe, right? If you're using the OS your GS3 came with and was later updated to, you don't know what modifications have been made to it by Samsung, but it sure isn't generic Android. You don't even know if the source they publish (I assume it is downloadable somewhere per the GPL) is the same source they use to build what is installed on your phone. You're basically trusting that SOMEONE has checked this, but if everyone assumes "someone else" will have checked it? Not to mention that parts of Android, as well as some/most/all of Samsung's added special sauce are not open source, and may allow for a backdoor/spycode.

      Even compiling from source you laboriously checked yourself is not a guarantee - if you don't believe me google "on trusting trust" and be amazed at what is possible.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

    But if the commercial pressure from Amazon, Salesforce.com, MS, Yahoo!, Google, etc. is what really gets the powers-that-be in Washington to change these policies, then I may reconsider....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

      Policies won't change. Contrary to popular belief, profit will only rise as high as #2 in the U.S.A., defense will always rest at #1. Changing gun control laws are very difficult here, because both people and government share this common ground. Sure, we might go broke, but good luck with an invasion.

      At best the government will fabricate some documents on the fly and present them, it will be up to you to believe them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

        I think you will find that the invasion will come from within.

        Your population is armed, and will your armed forces really fire on their own?

        History has a horrible habit of repeating itself.

        1. Abot13

          Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

          yes history repeats itself, and USA military already did shoot unarmed USA citizens before. Shooting armed citizens is even easier. Which is a good reason to arm your citizens, much easier to shoot them.

          And if you count police as am armed force then its the order of the day, not an exeption.

          Yes a revolution can happen, and if the current politicians on both sides keep it up will become sure to happen, but it will be a very very high bodycount. which is good for planet earth. But every downside has an upside ;)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

            "Shooting armed citizens is even easier."

            Physics might disagree with you here.

            1. SleepyJohn
              FAIL

              Physics can disagree all it likes ...

              ... but it will not be physics that gives the order: "Shoot to kill these dangerous armed crazies who are trying to destroy our wonderful country" - an order less likely to be savaged in Court than "Shoot to kill these unarmed old grannies on their way to Bingo".

              So, yes, shooting armed citizens is morally and legally very easy. A cynic might believe that the US Government is quite happy with that situation.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                "A cynic might believe that the US Government is quite happy with that situation."

                What the fuck happened here to this forum, did I miss the "You Must Hate Americans" section in the site registration?

                As far as your comment, keeping your mind closed to just the US government in regards to what you are speaking of is shallow. Any country can fire upon their own, regardless if their citizens are armed. China and tanks come to mind. England fired upon their own when they revolted to make a new country. Russia has perfected it to a point were you could almost argue the benefits of it.

                I can't see how a government under the control of a non-lunatic could consider it a "happy" thing. At one end they would be killing a worker that is making them money, on the other they would be fueling even further revolt (England learned that last one the hard way).

                You don't have to be overly cynical to be paranoid, I'm living proof :-).

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  @mybackdoor

                  'What the fuck happened here to this forum, did I miss the "You Must Hate Americans" section in the site registration?'

                  Nothing happened to the forum, America happened to the world and this is the result. Pretty much despised as a nation globally*

                  *Individuals are a different matter. I happen to know some very nice Americans

                  1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

                    @mybackdoor

                    While I know many Americans I like - and a good number of my friends are Americans, and right decent people, thank you - America as a country can go fuck itself. It has been a good long while that a nation ruled by something other than a single dictator-like figure has so desperately needed housecleaning.

                    Even monarchies eventually developed the aristocracy to reign in the power of their royalty. Commoners gained representation through parliaments. Yet America holds itself up as a beacon of all that's right and good whilst allowing "executive power" to reach levels that most of these restrained monarchs could only dream of.

                    Worse, through objectively terrible decisions like Citizens United America has further reduced that ability of not merely individuals, not merely communities or towns or entire states but the collective voice of the entire nation to a mere whisper when compared to the power of a large corporation.

                    Topics where your nation very nearly speaks with a single, unified voice (for example gun control) have become charlatanous mockeries of what democracy should be. The needs, wishes, desires and thunderous demands of "the overwhleming majority" matter nothing in the face of backroom politics and the massive machine of lobbying. State legislators are no different; an entire state can turn out to "stand with Wendy" only to see their efforts rent to ashes mere days later.

                    This is how you treat your own people. You lie to them professionally. You murder the innocent in the name of the law. You rain down suspicion and even death upon your own people and you dare expect us to look upon you as anything more than the haughty, pretentious, arrogant, murderous, xenophobic, savages you choose to elect to run your nation?

                    We haven't even gotten into the disdain, disrespect and outright lack of humanity, compassion or common decency which which your nation treats the other denizens of this world. The United States of America is a corrupt nation unfit to preach about morality or freedom to anyone. It is a nation in desperate need of a legal and overwhelming political change. New parties need to emerge and America as a nation needs to learn some fucking humility.

                    Wake me when the Unites States of America has ratified the International Criminal Court. At that point I will be wiling to consider that American might be ready to be given it's first responsibility and might one day be treated as an adult. Until then, suck up, America.

                    You bring the criticism on yourselves.

                    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
                      Black Helicopters

                      Re: @mybackdoor

                      Trevor's post can be shortened to

                      Presidential Rules

                      1) USA No 1

                      2) USA No 1

                      3) USA No 1

                      4) Fuck the rest of the world if you don't agree. { send in the Marines etc}

                      Most Americans are pretty nice people but they have a totally blinkered view of the world. i.e.

                      Pretty well anything outside the lower 48 states does not exist. Remember that many have never travelled outside their own state.

                      My ex colleagues (in MA, NH) were astounded that I have been to 48 out of the 50 states (Alaska & OK are left).

                      Black Helicopters naturally.

                  2. WatAWorld

                    Re: @mybackdoor @AC 00:36

                    "Nothing happened to the forum, America happened to the world and this is the result. Pretty much despised as a nation globally*

                    *Individuals are a different matter. I happen to know some very nice Americans"

                    1. As UK citizens we know from 300 years of being the lone global super power that the rest of the world hates global super powers.

                    2. The USA shafted the UK after WWII with heavy loan repayments that lasted until 1996.

                    So US citizens should know from their own feelings that memories of hatred of super powers are long lasting.

                    3. The USA is a democracy and its people are responsible for the actions of their government.

                    There are lots of very nice people who vote for drone strikes and invading powerless countries using "shoot to kill shock and awe" campaigns.

                    4. The Americans do some good in the world. They are not all bad, and even the bad ones are seldom entirely bad.

                  3. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: @mybackdoor

                    It's the actions of the US government/military/corporate that are hated. But who votes in US governments? Nobody else but US citizens, so you have to shoulder some of the responsibility and accept that you are in small part personally responsible.

                  4. Rick Giles
                    Pirate

                    Re: @mybackdoor

                    Lets not forget the whole "The sun never sets" business either. I think that a lot of those countries hated the crown back in the day, You should be happy that your not in the spotlight anymore.

                    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

                      @Rick Giles

                      Your/you're. Learn them!

                      Also: if you think for a moment that the UK - or any other major power - isn't "in the spotlight" then you are deluding yourself. Ask the British how they feel about Iraq, or Greece about about EU monetary policy. The difference is that the douchebaggery of most other major powers is a pale shadow when compared do the overall dickishness of the good ol' US of A.

                      American exceptionalism: present in the populace as much as the politicians.

                2. SleepyJohn
                  Big Brother

                  Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                  @mybackdoor

                  I believe the original poster was making the point that 'having the right to bear arms' is, in truth, likely to place you in greater danger from the US Government than not having it, due to the ease with which it can justify shooting an armed man. A cynic might therefore conclude that it is in the interests of the US Government to encourage the bearing of arms, as it is then easier for it to kill off nuisance people without its corporate pals losing money due to the neighbours disgustedly taking their business elsewhere. This would undoubtedly make the corporates 'happy", and I expect they would pass some of that 'happiness' onto the Government..

                3. Mystic Megabyte
                  Stop

                  Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                  >>What the fuck happened here to this forum, did I miss the "You Must Hate Americans" section in the site registration?

                  Maybe something to do with the USA using the CIA to overthrow/destabilise democratically elected governments that it did not like. You can add the left wing Labour government of Australia to this list. (1960s)

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

                  All done in the name of democracy, or was it corporate interests?

                  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
                    Unhappy

                    Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                    "All done in the name of democracy, or was it corporate interests?"

                    Well in the aces of Alledne of Chile in the early 1970s it might have been the CIA pension fund holdings of RTZ, which (IIRC) he nationalized.

                    Interestingly the CIA seemed to avoid most of the Iran/Contra efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (another democratically elected left of centre government, unlike the Formosa family, that ran the country the way a mafia family would run a country for a generation).

                4. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                  "England fired upon their own when they revolted to make a new country"

                  To be fair they were mostly criminals and scum of the jails...

                5. Rick Giles
                  Pirate

                  Re: Physics can disagree all it likes ...

                  A good number of the posts on these here forums revert to American bashing. Even more so when the actual article is about America.

                  Once were done with the revolution here, we will take care of the rest of them ;)

          2. Levente Szileszky
            WTF?

            Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

            "yes history repeats itself, and USA military already did shoot unarmed USA citizens before."

            Sure. So did the UK, France, Spain, Italy, let's not forget Russia/USSR (ohh boy!), Germany (OHH BOOOYYY!), even uber-peacenik Denmark shot its citizens before...

            ...so actually your point was... what exactly?

            1. NomNomNom

              Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

              if america doesnt shoot people then how come bush invaded iran for oil??

              1. NomNomNom

                Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

                sorry iraq

                1. Eddy Ito
                  Meh

                  Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

                  "sorry iraq"

                  Give it time, Iran might be in the cards yet. The president, meh does it really matter if it's Shrub or Oh, bummer.

                  1. deadlockvictim
                    WTF?

                    Shrub or Oh, bummer

                    Eddy Ito» The president, meh does it really matter if it's Shrub or Oh, bummer.

                    Abort Retry Fail Ito-san?

                    1. Eddy Ito

                      Re: Shrub or Oh, bummer

                      Ok, if I really have to spell it out, Shrub == Bush as used by the blue team and Oh, bummer == Obama from the red team meme. Sorry it was over your head.

                      "Abort Retry Fail Ito-san?"

                      Ito-san? Is that the best you've got? I'd have figured a syphilitic gonorrhea ridden redneck xenophobe Teamster would be more eloquent. Go ahead and look up the words with six or more letters on your own time.

                2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

                  Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

                  >sorry iraq

                  Give it a few months ....

            2. WatAWorld

              Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

              @Levente who said, "Sure. So did the UK, France, Spain, Italy, let's not forget Russia/USSR (ohh boy!), Germany (OHH BOOOYYY!), even uber-peacenik Denmark shot its citizens before...

              ...so actually your point was... what exactly?"

              The point is that the US authorities will do what the authorities of other nations have done and that it is even easier to give and follow orders to shoot armed civilians than unarmed civilians.

              And is your hand held peashooter going to make an impact on your government's helicopter gunships or Abrams tanks?

              Is your peashooter going to stop drone strikes on your rebel civilian leadership?

              Guns are pointless now. If you need guns to improve your country, you might as well give up and move to Somalia.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

          How quickly a thread can derail :-)

          Invasion from within? Not sure how you mean that, or why it would happen, but revolution is a good thing from time to time. The vast majority of countries have come to be because of revolution, but those revolutions were generally held in revolt from another country.

          And yes, our country will fire on it's own, Lincoln proved that. Cut it anyway you want, he committed treason. I believe any country will fire on its own given the right circumstance, however, we are a long way away from that (I hope, I really hope).

        3. WatAWorld

          Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

          The German population was armed before and during the NAZIs.

          The Soviet population was armed before and during the communist era.

          Guns only make matters worse.

          Besides, people who are afraid to write letters to the editor are not going to go out in the streets to face tanks with guns.

          And as was noted, US soldiers and US police have a history of shooting other Americans. The US Civil War, Vietnam anti-war protests, any Friday night in a ghetto.

        4. Rick Giles
          Black Helicopters

          Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

          When the revolution comes, the armed forces will change sides.

      2. WatAWorld
        Unhappy

        Sadly emotional arguments based on fear trump arguments based on logical reasoning

        You're 100% right that defense is the #1 priority in the USA.

        Defense spending has been dragging the US economy to third world status after they lost 2,600 people to 9-11 just as surely as defense spending dragged the Soviet economy to third world status after they lost 8,668,000 people to WWII.

        It didn't make rational sense for the Soviets to spend so extravagantly on defense then. It makes even less sense for the USA to spend 7-1/2 times as extravagantly now.

        Problem is that making defense #1 is an emotional argument based on fear. It is almost impossible to defeat an emotional argument using logic, and the defense industry has most of the cards in the fear suit.

        I suppose we could mention "money spent on defense is money not able to save American lives through medical research or traffic safety", which is true, perhaps spending on medical research or highway safety would save 10 times as many lives as spending on the NSA. But I can't figure a way to give it a strong emotional appeal. The flaw is that it uses logic and a person has to know at least a bit about economics and the concept of "opportunity costs".

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

      3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: good luck with an invasion

        Why invade at all ?

        You're doing a brilliant job of fucking up your country on your own.

    2. Rukario
      Facepalm

      Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

      So, do you buy the capitalist arguments about America being a corporatocracy?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've already taken steps to move my data to off-shore, non-US / UK influenced datacenters where I control the content and encryption methods used. It will not be AES.

    Our company email will be moved from Google servers as soon as practicable and we are introducing strong email encryption in the short term. Outlook is being replaced as our mail client and Office replaced by alternates as well.

    In a way, this is a damned good thing. Sorry that it took such a scandal to motivate our board, but here we are. The taps are open on new spending to protect our clients and their info. US companies will see non of it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm curious, where are you headed with your company's hosting? Currently I funnel a lot of money to amazon for our clients' hosting, and while I'd love to consider non-US alternatives, I cannot justify the increased costs (everything I've looked at so far is 3-6x as much as we'd spend with aws).

      1. shaolin cookie
        Thumb Up

        @AC 6/8/2013 19:59

        Can't speak for the original poster, but my company moved from Amazon to GreenQloud, which is Iceland based, and the costs are rather similar. Would depend on your usage of course. And they don't have quite all the features of Amazon yet, enough for us, but again, YMMV. At least there's the added benefit that they're green to help justify the move.

    2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      AES, or not AES...

      Some people don't seem to grasp that AES was created by two Belgian cryptographers and after a lot of competitions and open peer-review by most of the world's experts and was ultimately decided to be the best by more or less everyone. That is why it became the official US choice (i.e. NIST), not because it was created with a NSA backdoor of any sort.

      Now you might argue that the NSA has built acceleration hardware to assist AES code-breaking, but with the advent of FPGA systems that can be re-programmed to suit any cypher, hence no common cypher is going to fair better. And if you go inventing or adapting your own or some obscure one, most likely you will inadvertently make matters much worse for your own security.

      So if cryptographic security really REALLY matters to you, you need to concentrate on having a high entropy key, and securing the key against "APT" style of system wide hacking. Most likely, that is the weak link.

      Finally, don't over-estimate your importance to the spooks, most comentards seem to think the NSA, etc, will blow days of billion dollar machine's system time on their scribblings. They won't, not unless you are important enough.

      Maybe you are, say a business that is serious money competition to a US gov supplier, for instance. But in reality making your data encrypted in any way means they (and advertisers, private investigators, etc) can't read/mine it so it gets stored away in case they do want to investigate you. Out of 1 billion or so Internet users? Really?

      1. WatAWorld

        Re: AES, or not AES... Universal pwnership is the next logical step in universal capture.

        @ Paul

        1. The problem is that it is not 1 in a billion internet users.

        By encrypting our email we'd make ourselves 1 in a few hundred thousand individuals globally.

        Even most government departments don't routinely encrypt their email.

        If encryption becomes easier and more routine, and almost everyone adopts it, then the 1 in a billion argument might become valid. But almost everyone adopting anything is far fetched.

        2. We can encrypt all we want, and I agree AES is probably one of the better algorithms to use, but how do we protect the private keys and the unencrypted input and output?

        Pwnership of our computers gives the ability to see everything on them, even when it is only there a short time.

        How do we stop the NSA pwning all our computers? Universal pwnership is the next logical step in universal capture.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How do we stop the NSA pwning all our computers?

          That is a tricky question, and really the only answer that can even take a stab at it is open source.

          We know Apple & MS are USA companies and cooperate, so one can rule those suppliers out. But even with open source you don't know who, if anyone, has properly reviewed all code, nor do you know if the repository you get everything from is actually based on the original code.

          Ultimately physical separation is the only way to make sure your data is safe from all but a physical entry (either intruder or an employee copying it off).

  4. NoneSuch Silver badge

    U.S. NATIONAL DEBT

    The Outstanding Public Debt as of 06 Aug 2013 at 07:51:31 PM GMT is:

    $ 16, 747, 182, 640, 952.95 and increases 2.2 Billion dollars a day.

    I doubt that amount will be going down anytime soon given the NSA spying revelations. Once people start buying Airbus over Boeing, it will ripple quickly. Personally, I think the business loss estimates given in the Reg article are very low.

    1. An0n C0w4rd

      Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT

      I doubt very VERY much that an Airbus / Boeing decision will be purely made on whether the NSA snoops on data hosted or in transit through the USA. Likewise a GE versus Rolls Royce decision for the engines on the plane are a lot more complex.

      I see more serious repercussions in cloud hosting, as this article alludes to, and perhaps also security related software/hardware. I doubt there are backdoors in as many applications as rumours suggest, but non-USA based vendors will use this to their advantage on the International market.

    2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT

      I can't see this making any difference to non-IT systems.

      Maybe for Cisco, MS, etc. it will cause problems.

      Most definitely for cloud provides as things stand. But really, the whole idea of putting your data into someone else's hands without verifiable client-side encryption is dumb by any standards. All that the recent NSA revelations have shown is this risk (your data being subject to secret access by a foreign gov) is real.

      It applies no matter which country you store data in, not just the USA (though they seem to be the worst so far). The moral of today's story is encrypt before any others (ISP, cloud provider, etc) get access!

      1. WatAWorld

        Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT What is bad for the USA is bad for us in Canada.

        The US has a history of blocking parts exports to countries it does not like, for decades in the case of Cuba, for for weeks and months over smaller disputes elsewhere.

        If you cannot count on spare parts why by the aircraft?

        This line of reasoning wouldn't see Boeing sales to NATO allies affected, but it predicts lower Boeing sales to India, China, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and other non-aligned countries.

        I'm in Canada and I'm not happy about this. What is bad for the USA is bad for us in Canada. But sadly the USA is self-harming for emotional reasons and logic won't stop it.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT What is bad for the USA is bad for us in Canada.

          What is bad for the US isn't bad for Canada. The US is merely a source of finished goods. We can get those from Europe, or make them ourselves. (We do have an aerospace industry, in case you hadn't noticed, along with many other high-tech industries.)

          We can cheerily sell our natural resources to the EU or China. The US is our largest trading partner, but it doesn't have to be. It's only really worthwhile because they have shorter supply lines than our other potential trading partners. If they go titsup.com, we'll take a small blow...but nothing too serious. A minor readjustment of the economy as we pivot towards other markets.

          We saw this quite directly the last time their economy collapsed. 2008 might have been a fairly short-ish economic recession, however, Canada didn't suffer overmuch from it. We recovered way faster than they did (actually, has the US even replaced the lost jobs yet?), our banking industry didn't collapse, manufacturing jobs moved to Canada when the US collapsed and we took steps to diversify our economy, selling more into Europe, Asia and Latin America.

          So not only did we not have to go through the half-decade of pain that the US has been miserably slogging through, we wised up and made our economy more resilient to such a single point of failure in the future. In short: fuck 'em. Canada doesn't need the US. They're a nice close place to sell stuff for now, but we've got lots of other friends. If the US wants to drink itself into oblivion then I say let 'em. You cant' force 'em into rehab; they have to choose to climb up onto that wagon on their own.

    3. WatAWorld

      Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT Don't forget the upside of all this spying.

      Don't forget the upside of all this spying on US trade.

      1. They *can* know the other side's marketing strategies and bargaining positions.

      2. They *can* know embarrassing information with which to blackmail decision makers into compliance.

      3. We also know they're not above sabotaging the industrial enterprises of military rivals. Sabotaging the enterprises of commercial rivals could be next.

      GCHQ set the stage with spying on that Common Wealth Conference, spying on allies for commercial advantage.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Was the latest al-Queda threat real?

    Was the information about an al-Queda threat this weekend real, or an attempt by NSA to redirect the discussion to how well they protect us?

    In the spook-world, this would seem like a minor sin, and it's notable that the threat value gets vague as we learn more about it. An urging to "Do something" sounds more like a plea than a plan!

    1. WatAWorld

      Re: Was the latest al-Queda threat real?

      Everyone I know is assuming it was a fake threat, just based on past betrayals and past lies from the US government.

      But even ignoring history and looking just at logic, how would closing embassies for a few weeks stop an attack? Surely it would merely delay an attack.

      We know how much the NSA records and analyses. If they had "chatter" they'd have names, addresses, photos, address books, and there would be no need for embassy closures. Given their willingness to use lethal force on flimsy evidence, it would be faster and simpler to merely imprison or kill the alleged plotters.

      So both by history and by logic I think it was a false flag effort.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Unhappy

        Re: Was the latest al-Queda threat real?

        Meanwhile even the usually compliant BBC this morning noted that Yemen was subject to more than one drone missile strike per week, sometime killing whole families, let alone the frequent "errors" in targeting. I still fail to understand how a missile suddenly tearing a house apart isn't terrorism while, I don't know - being the wrong colour on a London train station is.

  6. Captain DaFt

    Well, no surprises here.

    The US was outed, and everyone's looking elsewhere for cloud services.

    Problem: The US was caught, but as any paranoid foo knows, All the major governments are doing it in one form or another, aided and abetted by most major corps.

    We've finally discovered what The Cloud is; just another name for Spy's Reading Room.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, no surprises here.

      At last

      We've finally discovered what The Cloud is; just another name for Spy's Reading Room.

      Someone's finally sussed it!!

      Homework..

      Why do companies want your DOB when you just want to register a vacuum cleaner?

      Why does Google need that phone number in case you forget your password?

      1. Eddy Ito
        Devil

        Re: Well, no surprises here.

        "Why do companies want your DOB when you just want to register a vacuum cleaner?"

        So they know when my grandmother was born? Note that only one website in the last few years has called bullshit on me being born in 1897 so I had to "lie" and use 1914. But seriously, who registers things like a vacuum cleaner? If they last five years you have to search the depths of ebay to find consumables like bags. Unless you've made your own adapter so you can use an old, slightly modified, pair of knit pants as a bag that you can empty and rewash of course.

        "Why does Google need that phone number in case you forget your password?"

        So they can call my burner. Which just happened to burn two years ago. Would now be a good time to mention that Google thinks my name is Robert Ornot? It's true, ready, reddy, reedy and redy were all taken so there must be a lot of Ornots around.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Encryption

    Does not exist for normal people, get over it...

    Sorry to burst your bubble there but the person that created it knows how to break it.

    I remember the bullshit years ago about 256-bit encryption being illegal outside the us, really? why? maybe it's because of the cost involved in decrypting it, nothing to do with it being unbreakable or it would have been outlawed.

    Unless your using a completely random 60+ combination of character types (including chr(32) and maybe 8 to 15) then you have no encryption.

    Tonight I'm cooking peri peri chicking wings in my tin foil hat.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Encryption

      >Sorry to burst your bubble there but the person that created it knows how to break it.

      If you believe that - I've got a bridge to sell you

    2. Another Cowardlyman
      WTF?

      Re: Encryption

      Is this really true?

    3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      FAIL

      Re: Encryption

      "Sorry to burst your bubble there but the person that created it knows how to break it."

      That statement tells me you know very little about how modern encryption algorithms, the kind that become international standards not the kind baked into your cars key fob, are developed.

      With that level of ignorance you're right to post AC.

  8. GT66

    How to shoot yourself in the foot American style.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      nope, I'm pretty sure that involves an actual gun...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only way to be secure from prying eyes is to bring your data back in-house and not use The Cloud.

    1. asdf

      hmm

      Depends on the country. In the US you have to do that as well as give money to both parties in elections else you may find sudden IRS audits or warrants compelling you to turn over your data. Bet something similar may be in true in most of Western Europe as well.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I find it amusing

    That people think that the NSA's reach is limited to US hosting companies.

    1. Brian Miller

      Re: I find it amusing

      I would have thought that this would be a wake-up call to abandon off-site cloud hosting entirely. When the data leaves US shores, then it can be analyzed in depth, as much as the NSA likes. Supposedly, if the NSA legally wants your data within the US, they have to get a warrant.

      However, no matter how badly (or goofy) the NSA gets, the real problem is with cyber-crime. I just finished reading "Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground," by Kevin Poulsen, and it just blows my mind how some encryption in commercial applications would have prevented a lot of data slurping by hackers. (And of course do things like not use RealVNC, leave back doors open on the machines for tech support, no passwords, or "0000", etc.)

      If you really want to be anonymous on the Internet, don't use it, and only pay with cash.

    2. Vociferous

      Re: I find it amusing

      Or that only the US is spying.

  11. asdf

    an American view

    As an American all I can say is good deal. Money is the only thing that gets anything to change in this corrupt nation.

  12. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Losing $20-30Bn *might* get some attention.

    That's a lot more than than the rebuild cost for the World Trade Centre buildings (about $2.4Bn). At $2m a life that still only adds about $6bn (and I'm pretty sure most people did not see anywhere near that).

    I guess the question is what do you want to do with your information once it's on cloud servers (let's cuts this BS about "Oh it's not anywhere, it's in cyberspace." No it is not)?

    Some things should be fairly easy to do with encrypted on the disk data, others (running a live database to support your company) less so.

    And remembers a 1st rate encryption algorithm could have a 3rd rate implementation.

    But note if the servers are a)Operated by a US company or b) Sited in the US (or both) THE PATRIOT act applies and they have to cough it all up to anyone with a federal badge.

  13. tempemeaty

    Over one half

    More than half the Congress is in violation of the constitution for voting for the NSA snooping to remain and are now internal enemies of the United States. That is serious. Perhaps this loss of Billions is now the blow back that the elite have to suffer for trying to use the Gov as the monitors of the population in conjunction with the controlling of their data in the cloud.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Mushroom

      Re: Over one half

      'People' made the constitution, and 'people' can unmake it. Well, at least that's how it's looking.

  14. gnufrontier

    Cloudy thinking

    This is not an article. It is more like a summary of a press release sent by the lobbying group promoting their bogus survey as having some merit. I would really like to see how they came up with their numbers. I can almost guarantee they aren't worth the back of the napkin they were calculated on.

    1. Vociferous

      Re: Cloudy thinking

      You're getting downvoted for voicing an unpopular view, but I think you're correct. $90 billion is an awful lot of money, I find it highly unlikely that cloud service revenue would drop that much just because of this. Hell, is the sum total cloud service revenue even that high?

  15. Sureo
    Facepalm

    What if....

    What if the NSA runs out of storage capacity and decides to use the cloud. But much of their data comes from the cloud, and they will feed back until all of the storage in the universe is exhausted.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: What if....

      "What if the NSA runs out of storage capacity and decides to use the cloud. "

      The probably do.

      But it's their servers sitting in their offices.

      They are not that stupid.

  16. WatAWorld

    US-controlled companies lethally compromised by US government cyber attacks.

    It is not just time sharing, er uh, "cloud", although cloud is an obvious concern.

    It is all hardware, software and backbone cables from US-based and US-controlled companies.

    Possibly if a company merely has an office in the USA it can be regarded as lethally compromised for some purposes.

    US-controlled companies have been lethally compromised by US government cyber attacks.

    And those cyber attacks by their own government are as legal as they are continuous and 100% effective.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New Outlook email "feature"

    In addition to:

    TO:

    CC:

    BCC:

    Pretty soon we'll have:

    NSACC:

    Of course, this last option will be set as "always-on" and will be hidden from the user.

  18. WatAWorld

    Countries need to safeguard their domestic industry and academia

    Countries need to safeguard their domestic industry, academic and commercial interests.

    And that means establishing a domestic internet and good old fashioned shared computer services (cloud) in a manner secure from foreign eyes.

    Sure your own government will spy on your business, but you can be pretty certain it won't give away what it finds to your foreign competitors -- and to business that is the important part of privacy.

    Likewise for academia, your own government is not going to steal your research and give it to a foreign institution.

    (This doesn't aid the privacy issue for ordinary individuals, since individuals are normally more worried about their own government spying on them, their own police and tax agencies, their own snoopy newspapers and neighbours.)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Countries need to safeguard their domestic industry and academia

      Sure your own government will spy on your business, but you can be pretty certain it won't give away what it finds to your foreign competitors

      Of course it will - my own government (Denmark) is presently logging my internet traffic, telephone calls and whatever else it can grab in exchange for the occasional lunch in the White House!

      My government even tried to extradite some women involved with some unspecified drug-related crime back in the 1980's to the USA - a country that tortures and murders people like any other banana-republic - entirely on its own initiative, like that little shit in school who always rat people out to Teacher, the Americans were kind of embarrassed and send her back. My government made up for it by bombing Libya into a failed islamic nutjob-state though. Always eager to please their masters.

      The government is no longer our friend and protector!

  19. TheOldFellow

    Cheap Cloud storage for legit uses then?

    Does this news mean that US cloud storage will get cheaper. If there is less demand, then there should be a price drop. This is good news.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too bad, so sad

    Only the clueless are concerned over the security measures that authorities around the globe are using to protect the ignorant masses.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Too bad, so sad

      "to protect the ignorant masses"

      see icon

    2. Vociferous

      Re: Too bad, so sad

      I think what you meant to say is that only the ignorant masses are concerned over the security measures that authorities around the globe are using to control the ignorant masses.

  21. Chris G

    Just a thought

    If I was an NSA chap looking for anything in the cloud; I would create my own large Cloud Provider and have considerable amounts of shares in all the others. Then who needs a back door?

    I upvoted a couple of posts above, does that mean I am now on a target list as an anti- American

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: does that mean I am now on a target list as an anti- American

      Apparently, if you're not an American, the NSA has already put you on that list.

      1. Vic

        Re: does that mean I am now on a target list as an anti- American

        > if you're not an American, the NSA has already put you on that list.

        Additionally, if you are an American, the NSA has also put you on that list.

        Vic.

    2. Vociferous

      Re: Just a thought

      Great minds think alike: the Chinese secret service runs Baidu and Renren.

  22. Maharg
    Black Helicopters

    Amazon is not a participant in the [PRISM] program...

    "Saying anything apart from that Amazon is not a participant in the [PRISM] program would violate a court order, that is of course, if there was a court order, but mentioning this kind of court order, would actually violate the court order, so of course, there is no court order that means I have to say that Amazon is not a participant in the [PRISM] program.

    but I can tell you that the demand for AWS services worldwide, including Europe and Asia, has never been greater, so if you think about it, either the NSA are unaware we exist, or Amazon is not a participant in the [PRISM] program, and no court order saying we can say anything but that, exists."

    There I fixed it for you.

  23. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    So the USA is risky and Europe safe?

    I think the Europe part needs better defining.

    I would rate Britain, France and Germany as unsafe domains to keep the corporate crown jewels in. Britain and Germany because they sleep with the NSA, as well as having resident spy stations, and France because it likely is into cloud penetration, too.

    The high-speed fibre cables all have pinch points: Brazil, USA, UK, Singapore, with a small one in India and, equally, draconian computer access laws. The Russian block are tapped in Germany.

    Perhaps the answer is to keep the servers in a country that's antagonistic to the USA and doesn't host NSA spies. Greece and Cuba sure don't like the States. Or they could beef up the cable to Greenland and on to Newfoundland thence to the north shore of Canada.

    El Reg sure bounces around a lot. I've seen them hosted in the USA, Japan as well as Europe.

  24. Stevie

    Bah!

    "Castro"?

    I seem to remember that name from somewhere. Something to do with pigs...

  25. Vociferous

    Does that "90 billion in losses" estimate including lost contracts caused by NSA not being able to snoop on competitors of US companies?

    If non-US companies weren't paranoid about data theft before, they sure as hell should be now.

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