Microsoft unveils German data plan to tackle US internet spying

This is utterly ridiculous, possibly even subversive, given two things:

(a) The number of intentional leaks in Microsoft products (esp new Window's) that might be inspired by NSA surveillance

(b) The leaks showing German BND and Five Eyes cooperate very closely on SIGINT with BND letting them use selectors that no patriot of German government or industry should've tolerated.

Many articles, esp Der Spiegel, also indicate that German intelligence is lap-dogging so hard in an attempt to join Five Eyes club. Additionally, remember that the TAREX teams in ECI leaks were focusing on Germany, South Korea, and China. Yeah, not all the terrorism they talk about on TV: one opponent and two seeming partners. What do all three have in common? They're among the biggest economies competing with American (and Five Eyes') business interests. Makes sense among scheming intelligence agencies to use assets against them to get privileged few tight with Washington a competitive advantage and do counter-intelligence against their agencies doing the same.

So, Microsoft are either a bunch of idiots that have no awareness of Snowden leaks or reporting on the situation with NSA and Germany. Or they knew that while subverting their European offering to give NSA every chance to hit the customers' data as a favor to them to avoid pressure and keep lucrative contracts. I'm betting on the latter to be safe and continuing a boycott of Microsoft tech where possible.

I'm really surprised by the number of negative comments. Data hosted in Germany won't be accessible to Microsoft US nor the US government. So that's one problem solved. If the German government can access that data so what? Do you really expect to escape from that? Keep your data in house if you care about privacy that much. Most of German companies offering services to German customers now can say "your data is stored in your country" thanks to Microsoft. Then if the European government can snoop in, what do you expect MS to do? That's a problem that the German gov needs to address, a government elected by people. And again, no one is forcing you to be "in the cloud". Say what you want, "country clouds" are a step forward and a value some people are willing to pay for.

This is actually not a bad model at all for this. It leaves all parties (except the US government, which ostensibly has no authority to block it) with everything they wanted.

The US government is still undoubtedly going to get the data no matter who stores it, but they're going to have to risk pissing off the German government to get it.

Telekom. Telekom also has backplanes to the BND. So either we have NSA -> BND or BND -> NSA and even if they don't share anything we will still deal with one of them.

Are we going to pretend that the US is the only country that ever forces companies to hand over data or tries to acquire that data through more nefarious means? If you are worried about this sort of thing, it seems strange to put your full trust in another provider regardless of whether they are based in the US, Germany, or any other country. Aren't you better off just keeping the data away from the provider in the first place (either through encryption or simply using your own software/hardware).

All because EUGH stopped Safe Harbor.

This is the first mover. Next wave will be SaaS companies (Email e.g.) guaranteeing data stays in the EU. At the end of January no EU company can transfer email addresses, IP addresses or HR data into the US. Only if there is a Safe Harbor II coming where the US guarantees to not spy on data without warrant/open procedure and legal recourse by EU citizens.

PS: I know this EUGH ruling does not make sense with UK and France having the same intransparent all-people are spyed on. But this are the rules now.

Besides the faux-security of this offer this is the first "real" public cloud offer Deutsche Telekom does. Well, they don't - they have to partner up. A couple of months ago they already announced to partner with Huawei to build a public cloud (in late 2016, no further details), now they are renting out space for Microsoft (in early 2016), like Equinix does in Frankfurt for Amazon AWS.

Deutsche Telekom is still owned by the Federal Republic (31% iirc) so one could argue that most substancial decisions, like preventing FTTH, undermining net neutrality and the lack of innovation, is either accepted or even enforced by the biggest single shareholder.

Or it's just another sign, that politics should get out of the business as they are not qualified and not independent enough to control their stakes in corporations which also includes a technological perspective for the foreseeable future to secure the business.

Deutsche Telekom has no such perspective in its home country business, only the US mobile business keeps growing. At home, Deutsche Telekom is just fighting an rearguard battle. Whatsapp killed SMS, Skype killed Voice, AWS kills the mid/large enterprise datacenter outsourcing business, margins fall, jobs got cut. Venture Capital business "T-Venture" failed, was shut down, only some SV investments will be made in the future, no focus on local/German startups anymore.

Even their marketing department has no clue about "that cloud thingy", releasing official media materials like:

"Cyber Security in German: Hackers need to stay out" https://www.telekom.com/static/-/106374/2/Foto-04_850x550-bi

and more: https://www.telekom.com/medien/bild-ton-und-infografiken/fot...

It's a shame that Germany has no investor person like Carl Icahn who is able to force the management to deal with the consequences: Shutting down/selling dying T-Systems, selling T-Mobile USA, revamping local access business to make money and stay competitive.

This is interesting approach that works for what EU requires (that data stays in EU). Basically, it solves the safe harbor to some extent. Still, they may have leakage of data or something under the hood that can make this useless, but on paper it has some value.

[ads]Btw, if you need to store sensitive data in EU then you should use chino.io[/ads]

It's really amazing how all MS-related posts still seem to attract the people wearing tinfooil hats. Not saying there's no truth in there but, you know, just sayin'.

At this point, Microsoft might as well be a branch of Government...

privacy is important for every one

From the comments:

"Will be interesting to see whether customers will agree to pay a premium for a risk that they do not understand much less can quantify.

The elephant in the room is that all European companies engaged in international commerce are breaching European data protection laws in some way on any given day. The vagueness and subjectivity of many obligations under the legislation leave businesses in an almost impossible position. And most citizens have no idea what benefits the legislation bestows on them because it is so complicated and philosophical. The regime has been in place since 1995 and since that time the average Jo, Jean, Juan and Johannes have all had their 'privacy' massively eroded, however you define that term. The one benefit it was meant to have was harmonisation to make the single market work, but that hasn't really worked either. Frankly, it is a complete sham and failure.

Whilst the single market is powerful force for good, it is continually under attack from this sort of well-intentioned but barmy 'social' protection initiative. All it seems to benefit is the army of regulators at a national and European level who engage in endless navel gazing, looking out for the next hapless target to keep them gainfully employed."