USA opposes 'Schengen cloud' Eurocentric routing plan The US Trade Representative is warning Europe not to proceed with the idea of EU data network services that don't cross the Atlantic. The idea of a European “walled garden” emerged in February amid rising anger over revelations that the NSA wants to listen to the whole world – and that its sweeps included snooping on German …
"I guess they could care less how the rest of the world view us."I suspect they couldn’t. … Big-nosed Pengie
Quite so, Big-nosed Pengie, and their actions would appear to prove the evidence that they couldn’t care less. However, the madness and sadness in such a fact nowadays, whenever things are fundamentally changed and being changed constantly, is that they should, for the views that the world and worlds see of them is not good for them and those and/or that which presumes to lead them, and is no longer going to be accepted and tolerated by them, either domestically at home or on foreign soil in alien lands.
And do yourself a big favour and don’t even think about placing any bets on that bald headed chicken not coming home to roost and laying waste to its cuckoos’ nests, for you will lose everything you possess packing and backing a lame duck.
Hmmm? Are El Reg Internet Service Provision servers under FCUKGBNI jurisdiction and control or in the command of the foreign office and stealthy intelligence services in another jurisprudence/mindset? Not that it really matters a jot of course, whether one be either on or off course/line, whenever one knows what one is doing in such fields as be sharing sensitive compartmented disruptive and creative information.
And the Schengen cloud comes with pitfalls too. "We're a European company and for security we have used "Europe-only" data services. But now we want to open an office in New York/Shanghai/Singapore--so I guess we need to change”. …. Marketing Hack
Err …. Hmmm …. In that case I suppose systems need just a novel change and a new exchange for information and intel [iex]? ……. http://www.iextrading.com
Something which is not crooked and corrupted, so that all can flash crash and play fairly together …… http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/magazine/flash-boys-michael-lewis.html
>"Could care less" or "couldn't care less"?
>Both are correct. One is a common expression, the other is grammatically correct. Take your pick.
Doh!
Both are grammatically correct. (Both are even common expressions).
One (the latter) usually means just what the person intended to convey.
The other (the former) usually means the opposite of what the person was trying to convey but, having swallowed common expressions without digestion by brain en route to arse, aforesaid person is too thick (common British expression) to realise how illiterate and ignorant an impression they have just conveyed of themself.
Pointless as well. The NSA was specifically created to eavesdrop on electronics in places other than the US. Compromise a couple of installation points there and voila!
If you want your data kept private there's only one way to do it: encrypt it end to end at which point it doesn't matter whether someone is listening along the way. In the past this was an expensive overhead proposition for computers. I don't think it should be quite as much problem these days. The other bit is, you need to encrypt more of the traffic. Right now encrypted traffic draws extra scrutiny. You need at least 50% of the transit traffic to be encrypted, which means it needs to be the default instead of a drop down change.
Can't see what the fuss is about. The big boys quite surely already have servers in European space, it's just a matter of them making sure no Euro<>Euro comms ever leave the Euro part. Why would Uncle NSA be so pissed about Euro data not crossing over to any place they can tap it? Oh wait...
Then again, maybe people should just start using encryption instead of believing someone's (and insert whatever you want here) good intentions.
Heck, if everyone started using proper encryption, the noise would be so bad Uncle NSA would be driven to fallback into time honored targeted spying tactics instead of just slurping ludicrous amounts of data in the hope they catch something remotely useful.
(Congress might be happier too since targeted black ops must surely cost less than running their datacenters...)
We already have "E-Mail made in Germany", which DTAG, GMX and Web.de belong to, which send email between themselves in encrypted form and directly, not leaving German borders.
Obviously the whole thing falls down when you send an email to somebody who doesn't have a DTAG, GMX or Web.de account, if their servers don't accept encrypted mail headers, they have to send the email in the clear and if the address is hosted outside the EU...
"Why would Uncle NSA be so pissed about Euro data not crossing over to any place they can tap it?"
It seems "any place they can tap it" actually includes quite a lot of the EU anyway, between their UK base with GCHQ and various more covert efforts on mainland Europe.
Of course, *you* can put *your* mail server anywhere you like - but when you're communicating with a typical person with a Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo address, *those* servers are in the US anyway (a quick trace route from the UK shows Hotmail mail going through routers in NYC and on to somewhere in California). Good luck getting the public to give up all their email addresses.
I have my own domain, so control everything about the inbound email routing. Where did I put it? New York, because I like the email service an Australian company - Fastmail, previously owned by Opera in Norway - offer. Yes, I could have bought hosting in Paris or Berlin, so a different set of acronyms got to snoop on it all, but I wouldn't see that as an improvement; given the choice, I'd worry less about the NSA than about their French or German counterparts anyway.
".....Why would Uncle NSA be so pissed about Euro data not crossing over to any place they can tap it? Oh wait..." <Sigh> And once again the sheeple fall in line and bleat in chorus. There is nothing to stop the NSA listening in to anything on the proposed Schengen network, either through hacking it to pieces, or the much simpler route of just asking the GCHQ to do it for them as - shock horror! - they ALREADY do now. There is a legitimate US business concern about protectionism - Deutsche Telekom are hot on the idea because they know they will be the lead on an European-only (which actually means 'German run') network, and bigger US telecoms will be excluded from bidding for the work. The equivalent would be the US kicking all foreign telecoms operators out of the States, I can imagine just how rabid the cries of protectionism would be from the EU then. But don't let that interrupt your anti-Yank bleating.
The UK is not part of Schengen. It is pretty clear that this Euro network would exclude the UK, precisely because of our Trojan Horse status.
As for "hacking it to pieces" that is as yet a straw man - it may be that there are plans for a secured network that is NSA/GCHQ proof.
And there is no legitimate concern about protectionism; national security trumps business interests. The US is currently "allied" to the EU but (asa French general pointed out recently) is far from being a "friend". If US business doesn't want to be excluded, they should do something about their government's spying.
"The UK is not part of Schengen....." Please try a little research before bleating - the UK is not part of the Schengen Area but is bound by the Schengen Convention as it is EU law as part of the Amsterdaam Treaty. But the linking of the Schengen Area and the proposed 'European network' has SFA to do with Schengen (at the moment it is just a few countries presenting the idea whereas the Schengen area covers 26 European states), it is simply a term ignorant journos have seized on because it has European connotations and also neatly implies an exclusion of the UK. Countries like Poland are not going to give Germany any form of control over their telecoms. However, even before the Amsterdaam Treaty is considered, the UK would have to be included as a country suitable for a bidding role under basic EU trade rules. Merkel can shriek all she likes, if she were to try and designate an EU member and NATO partner like the UK as 'hostile' security-wise she would only be giving the UK electorate another excuse to say "see, them Europeans just want our cash" and increase the chances of the UK voting to tell Brussells to go get stuffed. France might like that but Germany actually wants someone else around to help pay for the PIIGS.
".....As for "hacking it to pieces" that is as yet a straw man....." Yeah, it's not like the GCHQ and NSA have hacked the European telecoms already - oh, wait, they did! Or that the Europeans (including the Germans) are deeply dependent on intelligence derived from the actions of the NSA and GCHQ, so much so that any 'European-only' network would be given up to the Yanks at the design stage if only because of Putin's current antics and the nervousness of the Baltic neighbours in Germany's backyard.
".....asa French general pointed out recently....." The Fwench military are so rabidly anti-Yank I take anything they say with a pinch of salt. France sat outside NATO for years after de Gaulle threw a sulk over not getting equal billing as the Special Relationship gave the UK, and their continuous maneuvering to try and create an European Army is nothing more than an extension of that tantrum. The Fwench forces simply haven't got over the humiliation of 1940 nor the fact it was the Brits and the Yanks that had to kick the Nazis out of France in 1944. Then they had the further humiliation of having their empire given back to them by the Brits and Yanks, only to lose countries like Indochina, followed by the further humiliation of the US having to step in to try and clear up the mess the Fwench had created in Viet Nam.
It is even more hypocritical given the eavesdropping of Frenchelon. And that the NSA, KGB and Mossad are rumored to have extensively hacked that bit of European security, which does not bode well for the resilience of any 'European-only' network. Merkel is just trying to ride the wave of anti-Yank hysteria through a tough period at the polls, expect The Great European-Only Network to quietly die a death as soon as the press finds something else to spoonfeed the sheeple.
I am struggling not to be put off by the grammar, "see, them Europeans just want our cash" - in English we use "they" rather than the USA "English spoken by foreigners" dialect. Similarly, though not a great French admirer in certain respects (e.g. betrayal of their British helpers in the Middle East such as paying the Irgun and Stern gang to murder Britons during the second world war; hmm, bit like the USA supporting the IRA in their murderous campaign against an ally of USA), the babyish "fwench" says more about you than them.
Factually, the glorious forces fo the USA entered the war as late as possible and only then when attacked by Japan (until then, at least, their great and good such as Cheney were supplying oil and other goods to Germany). They were involved extensively in the last couple of years. But then American policy tried very hard to keep both Britain and France out of their colonies and extracted a high price in goods and money that has finally been repaid, in Britain's case, just a couple of years ago and there are still USA forces in Britain. Oddly, most money was poured into Continental Europe while more money was extracted from GB.
The French military attitude to USA seems a bit exaggerated, apart from the bit over colonies (and, with Britain, the Suez canal): France was a strong supporter of the American revolutionaries, complete with soldiers, weapons and money, as part of their N. American war against Britain and without which it is probable the revolution would have failed. Even now, France seems almost impossibly pro-USA and anti-British.
As for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos: goodness, thank heavens for the Americans. What a wonderful job they did there, after helping the communists to oust France (not seen the photos of American chaps with the communists when France was still in Indochina?). So generous pouring all those chemicals and explosives over the region.
The Americans do need at least a solid signal of European irritation. I have not got a reference to hand; but I believe one item to come out of the recent revelations is how USA spying was used to get infomration from the makers of Airbus, including the partners in Britain, to feed back to the American aeronautics industry. One does ask oneself if GCHQ were so unaware or so Americanised in their attitudes that they missed this or if they are not the only channel open to the Americans.
As for Merkel's "tough period": I suspect Obama, Cameron and many others wish they had her position, both domestically and internationally.
As for "protectionism" and American complaints if their business in the European telecoms market was restricted: the USA does this all the time in all sorts of industries, from Pringle jumpers to who knows what, either explicit or bureaucratic barriers, enforced for them by WTO.
Anon as at w.
"We spy on you, you spy on us. Biggest difference I see is your guys are a bit better at it than ours are. Or at least they haven't outted themselves yet."
Nah, the biggest difference is that no other democratic country has built an infrastructure to allow them to spy on every human being on Earth.
"....has built an infrastructure to allow them to spy on every human being on Earth." Sorry to pop your bubble of shrieking, hysterical melodrama, but not even the NSA has or even plans to have the ability to spy on every human being on Earth. Even if you had chosen just every telephone conversation in teh World then the NSA would still be short of that capability for decades, if ever. To actually believe the NSA could analyse all the Internet activity just shows you let your paranoia over-rule your logical faculties. Please try researching just a few facts before your next shrieking fit, starting here (http://blog.qmee.com/qmee-online-in-60-seconds/).
You also fail to understand that a large amount fo the NSA and GCHQ activity happens as part of the joint intelligence efforts of NATO, whereas the Norks and Chinese only use theirs for suppression.
"You also fail to understand that a large amount fo the NSA and GCHQ activity happens as part of the joint intelligence efforts of NATO, whereas the Norks and Chinese only use theirs for suppression."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
Bullshit!
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Bullshit!"
I see that shrieking bit of Yank-envy-driven denial was easier for you than admitting your didn't have a clue as to how much raw data is flying about on the Internet. And it is Yank-envy, you're one of those typical sheeple that wails on and on about how unfair it is that the US has so much money, that the US has so much influence, etc., etc. Are you Fwench, by chance?
We had a laugh the other day on the office with a challenge - name three famous Swedish pop groups, then name three famous French pop groups. The former is easy - Abba, Roxette, The Cardigans, Ace of Base, Swedish House Mafia, Avicii - the latter is nigh on impossible. Most of us mentioned Jean-Michel Jarre, wimped out with one-minor-hit Vanessa Paradis, and failed on the third. The reason is the Swedes are confident enough in their own identity that they can write music for the rest of the World in English, whereas the Fwench insist on their insular outlook and supposed cultural superiority. You are exactly the same - "must hate the Yanks because it's so unfair that they have bigger toys than anyone else!"
"....The equivalent would be the US not wanting any of their data to be routed through North Korea or China...." Please stop being so blinkered by your Yank envy - the US and most Europeans are members of NATO and therefore military (and, by extension, intelligence) allies. They have agreements for both the exchange of data on terror threats as well as criminal threats as well as extensive trade agreements which are intended to inhibit protectionism. Please do explain how that compares with the situation with China, let alone the Norks.
" Please do explain how that compares with the situation with China, let alone the Norks."
These two nations, like the USA, spy on allies, foes, and everybody else, including their own citizens. Like the USA, both nations don't only perform military espionage, but also industrial and economic espionage. Like the USA, their laws allow them to wipe their backsides with their own citizens rights, not to speak of everybody else's rights. None of these three countries has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The main difference is that the USA has put in place an infrastructure that allows -or will soon allow- them to spy on everybody, non stop.
"Please stop being so blinkered by your Yank envy"
Yank envy? Yeah, and I also envy East Germany and the USSR, North Korea, and China, and all their perpetually happy subjects. And I should be happy watching while the biggest democracy in the world turns into a full blown dictatorship.*
*: Matt, just in case you didn't get it, the last paragraph is *irony*. You're welcome.
If the EU governments don't already have end to end encryption for intra- and inter-governmental communications, that's a massive fail. Ditto European companies. They have been aware since 1985 or thereabouts that networks can be tapped by bad actors. (Actually, make that 1974 for those that read The Ultra Secret, or 1945 for a lucky few.)
As others have pointed out, a geographically bound network is immaterial for general purpose traffic that either crosses the ocean anyway, or is subject to local surveillance anyway. Encryption is the only answer, and does not need a separate network.
Actually the data centers are cheaper than black ops. It's part of the reason we switched to them. Also, they tend not to have the same compromise issues. Granted Snowden changed that a bit, but only a bit. Even if he made off with tens of TB of data, there's 100s left and none of it is suspect from the spy's point of view. Whenever you run black ops you always run into issues of trust. Hence the tendency to select sociopaths who don't care even though in theory you're trying to weed them out.
The idea may seem, to those skilled in the art, as odd and redundant.
Quite the contrary, Richard Chirgwin, to those skilled in the virtual martial arts, for the idea is not at all odd or redundant, for it ensures and forces Uncle Sam, if he be in desperate need for a particular and peculiar sort of quantum communication [AI which be really great and exciting but also capable of turning astutely in an instant, and being, whenever deemed necessary, extremely bad and destructive] to pay for certain exclusive and proprietary disruptive information and/or constructive intelligence from foreign entities/alien bodies/persons of interest on the eastern side of the western pond and bleak tempestuous Atlantic, rather than thinking it acceptable to be able to phish and phorm it from ICT virtually for free. Those halcyon days are long gone. That is why the US Trade Representative is throwing toys out of the pram and thinking a tantrum appropriate.
However, all is not entirely lost, for such as those with a suitable security clearance and valid need to know and bulging fat wallet amongst the Wild Wacky Westerners in the Land of the Free can still have what they desire and/or vitally need, still virtually for free whenever they pass fistsfull of paper dollars/negotiable bonds to those who and/or that which can supply them with what Erotic Exotic Easterners/Euros are ...... well, being highly selective in providing.
Of course, it should not be lost on any or all, that such a simple relatively free virtual arrangement for payment in fiat paper currency of any denomination and hue, is easily made available to all in need of any kind of certain proprietary information and/or sort of sorted secret intelligence. And that is both the great abiding strength and persistent fundamental weakness in that remote global power reward system.
“Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a “Schengen cloud” by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them” the USTR thunders.
Indeed, Mr Thundering USTR, that be quite so, and it could lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign and US service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them, so Play Nice and Fairly and Avoid any Hassle is the Name of the New Great IntelAIgents Game in Town and of Paramount Importance to Never Ever Forget to Remember, WWWethinks.
IMHO the issue is very easy to summarise: either the US returns to a point where US service providers can only be forced to provide data through a legal path that requires probable cause, due process, avoids dragnet surveillance and is sufficiently transparent and accountable to re-introduce any trust in the US as a trade partner that can actually be trusted, or the US loses this business.
I predicted in January we'd face strong arm tactics, because US law makes it effectively impossible for US companies to credibly claim they can protect personal data up to EU standards. It's not that they don't want to, but they simply can't - federal laws leave US companies without any ability to protect themselves against official, yet unwarranted demands for access. This means that the whole of Silicon Valley is unable to supply services to EU companies that have a need to stay compliant with Data Protection laws, and that is absolutely correct - that's what they signed up for in 1948 with this whole Human Rights thing. It's not enough to pretend - it has to be done properly, and provably correct.
If the US wants to continue playing in that sphere it has to fix its laws instead of trying the usual lobbying, bribing and bullying with trade embargoes. Because trade embargoes don't fix the actual issue, and won't force EU companies to buy US services. If anything, it creates the impression that the US has definitely something to hide, and has no intention to address the problem.
In which case they *deserve* to lose EU business in the EU.
Such as? The whole point of the US objection is that everyone else is planning to use cables that don't pass through the US, so unless they're actually going to blatantly cause mysterious failures in the world's undersea cables, there's not much else they can do. Even ICANN is limited, if they tried to screw the root DNS, the rest of the world has the resources to set up a parallel network. US registrars stop serving DNS lookups, non-US root servers can delegate to non-US servers. It would just encourage people even more to not deal with US internet companies.
"...could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them”
Like Australians not being able to see content on Hulu or BBC web sites when they are supposedly promoting globalisation (so long as they can squeeze more cash from us). It's not like we don't buy a ton of their TV content in the first place, what's so hard about a bit of licencing?
I really think that a lot of overseas web sites don't remotely deserve being allowed to use "www.".
"Like Australians not being able to see content on Hulu or BBC web sites when they are supposedly promoting globalisation"
You think thats bad? There are areas on the BBC websites that British citizens cant access, because they contain "content not available in your country". Not only television shows but forums and news sites too.
British Broadcasting Corporation my ass, if its paid for by my bloody TV license then I want access to it.
"content not available in your country".
if its paid for by my bloody TV license then I want access to it.
Which is the whole point, of course. The bits that aren't available to the UK have been paid for by BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm which is legally not perrmitted to supply services in the UK under the terms of the BBC charter. They have not been paid for by your bloody TV licence.
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