As a someone from Europe (Germany), I can say that this whole affair is definitely a public relations disaster for the US over here. In the beginning, I was really unsure if regular people who are not members of the tech community would become aware of this or if it was perceived as to much of a niche topic.
Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening television news show carried a short segment about it. Today I read that Merkel herself wants to bring this up at her next meeting with Obama.
I'm a New Zealander living in Spain. My circle of acquaintances here seem to be disappointed, frustrated, but not surprised about the recent Prism revelations.
I find myself yearning for a non-USA based alternative to Gmail, Facebook, et al, yet am resigned that the alternatives are currently so inferior that I'll stick with the compromised options.
It will be interesting to see the real effects though. How long will people remember about this? How much will it affect their actual choices? The US "brand" overcame so many scandals, I'm not sure this one will be different.
Here in Belgium it's brushed up as an Obama blunder and an american-only problem that only affects social networks (aka facebook). Online press gigles about pictures of Obama looking at computer screens.
Dutch press reported very well... on Merkel's reaction.
Our own prime minister however pretends nothing is wrong, despite subsequent leaking from his own intelligence service.
And with a wonderful sense of irony he showed up few hours ago next door to our offices at a Google event focused on, wait for it: convincing the government to make better use of the internet...
But seriously, it is mainstream news here. Looking at the biggest prime time news show as I type this, major item.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to those global (US-based) cloud providers whose business strategy of poor profit margins in exchange for reduced costs of sale fair after this PR catastrophe. When it comes to the economics of this, the US is going to lose a huge amount of business due to this and potentially could in theory cause several businesses to go bankrupt. Since, government's are naturally fiscally motivated, I suspect the real way for Americans to complain is "with their wallets". In other words there is definitely an argument to be had for "We can't compete in the world's technology game because they don't trust our security. We can no longer innovate because of the government's haphazardness. Fix this US government." At least then when another terrorist attack happens in the US, the government can say "Well, you wanted your economics, so we gave it to you, but now you lack security. Pick one or the other."
This is going to be great for EU-based providers. They've been struggling for awhile to compete with Amazon, Rackspace, etc. I'd bet my money today on private, country-based cloud providers in EU. It will be nearly impossible for the US to dig itself out of this one.
I used to work for AWS and currently work for another large cloud computing company, and the words NSA and PRISM haven't been mentioned once in any of our companywide meetings this week.
I think the HN echo chamber is hyping this up more than the rest of the real corporate world. Large companies who want to move to the cloud already know the risks/rewards of hosting their data via offsite 3rd party companies. They aren't worried about some threat that the NSA is sucking up all their data, they are concerned about people breaking into their instances and stealing their customer data.
..it already is.
E.g. german companies with a data protection comissioners/officers usually don't store data outside EU coutries, since the data protection level is considered to be to low.
§4b Abs.2 S.2 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz prohibits conveyance of personal data outside EU borders if the interest of persons concerned outweighs it (mostly it does).
This PRISM-surveillance substantiates those concerns.
Ultimately the only language the US government understands is the massive fines and restrictions about to be levied against its corporations. Should Apple be operating in Europe for example? Would it be possible to levy a fine for each iPhone sold? Perhaps the tax authorities could take a different view on their profits...
In theory if someone knew they were subject to data being collected about them they could bring a law-suit against the companies involved for breaching data protection and privacy legislation.
The immunity that companies get from co-operating with the US government only covers them in the US, not in other countries.
But in practice the only time people know this information is being collected on them is when a company (i.e Twitter) refuses to comply with such an order.
If not providing the right browsers with a OS is a reason to enforce huge fines, then large scale espionage is a reason for much higher fines. Probably enough to fix the Euro crisis...
AS somebody living in the EU I'm more shocked the EU Par-lament(sic) are thinking this is new and ignoreing previous indications becasue not enough people went rabble rabble. WIth that the Press has jumped on this, forcing the consumer to be more up in arms as and fueling this to the extent that the EU mob have to play knee jerk reaction and supprise.
Seriously wonder if we should sack the politicians in the EU and just replace them with jornalists, as they seem to be more on the pulse of whats going on and have more control of the people.
But as no EU contry can control it's TAX then who or what gets at leaked data is no supprise.
Been enough details and facts leak out about this being in place before this PRISIM leak, still will only hurst USA based cloud providers and that is the only crux of it.
With the news out that UK and Dutch law enforcement have been fed data from PRISM, I really don't think anyone should take this feigned outrage seriously.
Members of the European parliament are elected directly by the people, and their mandate is only for work in the European parliament. Most of them have no insider knowledge of what happens in the ministries of individual countries.
To give some numbers: according to Wikipedia[1], about a third of MEPs have previously held positions in country parliaments, and about 10% in country ministries.
[+] [-] sentenza|12 years ago|reply
Well, I guess that question has been answered: Yesterday tagesschau[1], the biggest and most trusted evening television news show carried a short segment about it. Today I read that Merkel herself wants to bring this up at her next meeting with Obama.
[1] http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts42578.html at about 7:30
[+] [-] stevoski|12 years ago|reply
I find myself yearning for a non-USA based alternative to Gmail, Facebook, et al, yet am resigned that the alternatives are currently so inferior that I'll stick with the compromised options.
[+] [-] danmaz74|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1morepassword|12 years ago|reply
Our own prime minister however pretends nothing is wrong, despite subsequent leaking from his own intelligence service.
And with a wonderful sense of irony he showed up few hours ago next door to our offices at a Google event focused on, wait for it: convincing the government to make better use of the internet...
But seriously, it is mainstream news here. Looking at the biggest prime time news show as I type this, major item.
[+] [-] mbesto|12 years ago|reply
This is going to be great for EU-based providers. They've been struggling for awhile to compete with Amazon, Rackspace, etc. I'd bet my money today on private, country-based cloud providers in EU. It will be nearly impossible for the US to dig itself out of this one.
[+] [-] res0nat0r|12 years ago|reply
I think the HN echo chamber is hyping this up more than the rest of the real corporate world. Large companies who want to move to the cloud already know the risks/rewards of hosting their data via offsite 3rd party companies. They aren't worried about some threat that the NSA is sucking up all their data, they are concerned about people breaking into their instances and stealing their customer data.
[+] [-] killerpopiller|12 years ago|reply
§4b Abs.2 S.2 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz prohibits conveyance of personal data outside EU borders if the interest of persons concerned outweighs it (mostly it does).
This PRISM-surveillance substantiates those concerns.
[+] [-] MisterWebz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mordor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ig1|12 years ago|reply
The immunity that companies get from co-operating with the US government only covers them in the US, not in other countries.
But in practice the only time people know this information is being collected on them is when a company (i.e Twitter) refuses to comply with such an order.
[+] [-] lignuist|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsonne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalms|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tripa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|12 years ago|reply
Seriously wonder if we should sack the politicians in the EU and just replace them with jornalists, as they seem to be more on the pulse of whats going on and have more control of the people.
But as no EU contry can control it's TAX then who or what gets at leaked data is no supprise.
Been enough details and facts leak out about this being in place before this PRISIM leak, still will only hurst USA based cloud providers and that is the only crux of it.
[+] [-] runn1ng|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwit1979|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkn|12 years ago|reply
To give some numbers: according to Wikipedia[1], about a third of MEPs have previously held positions in country parliaments, and about 10% in country ministries.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_European_Parliame...