US slams Australia’s on-shore cloud fixation
delimiter.com.au
delimiter.com.au
The government of Canada cannot legally use US cloud services either without violating their privacy laws. It is only prudent.
Industry warned them and they went ahead and enacted those laws. Now they whine about the predictable results?
Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies. - Linus Torvalds
Why would anyone choose to add 200ms+ to every network call if there's an option to host data and services locally? Not to mention the bandwidth costs associated with moving bits across the Pacific.
1. Australia has pretty limited data pipes to the outside, so the more traffic is kept in-country the cheaper it is and the less likely there will be issues with world-traveling traffic
2. Aus ISPs have pretty low quotas for international traffic (40-200GB range I believe) but none for national traffic[0], which also lead those same ISPs to build or help building massive national caches of international resources (I believe Steam download traffic, for instance, is kept mostly or solely national)
[0] I may be wrong, and please correct me if I am. That's what I recall from past conversations on the subject
(Checked: Telstra, Internode, iiNET, TPG, Optus.)
That said, they do tend to have bandwidth quotas in the order of 50-500 GB/month depending on the plan you have.
And it is dirty expensive here. I currently pay $89.95/month for 300 GB/month via ADSL2 (20/1 Mbit/s) including line rental.
I don't have any other Internet providers that service my house...
It's not as expensive as you think-at least if we're comparing DSL vs DSL and ignoring FiOS/Cable.
Our download limits are pretty similar to the most of the limits "hidden" by the US ISP's, and our ISP's typically offer better free content and are FAR better in terms of customer service[1] and more lenient if you are the type to regularly hit your limit.
[1]: In part because they have to be due to consumer advocate bodies, and also because this will be the key differentiator (along with content) when the National Broadband Network gets deployed to the majority.
...but I am used to Swedish pricing levels. $45 for 100/10 Mbit/s with no quota.
Australia is a long way from anywhere. It's closest technical neighbor is NZ, but by several measures, that's tiny. Among the benefits AU has is that it's relatively close to India and the Philippines, both of which share a fair bit of language and culture (Commonwealth / US protectorate).
Australia from my time there is very much a crossroads of Asian and the Pacific. Especially Sydney. But I see stronger cultural ties with these two countries in particular.
So, yes, for countries which are technically relatively forward in its hemisphere, India and the Philippines offer some cultural landmarks offering commonality.
There used to be a lack of competition in the submarine cable sector, this is no longer true. In some cases it would cost more to push it to the user (DSL wholesale etc), and this is solely due to monopoly infrastructure providers.
No ISP has ever explicitly differentiated international and local traffic. Many ISPs unmeter their own content and mirrors, this was a result of international and some domestic traffic costing a fortune back in the day. Some ISPs unmetered peering exchange traffic as well, but I don't think any do anymore. The trend now is towards true unlimited plans.
So many legal issues issues become so much easier to handle.
And then there is that slight but not negligible additional benefit of extra local jobs in operating that local DC.
Inside Australia you have the major peering fabrics which are on the order of a dollarish a mbit (cap). Compare that to $50-200/mbit for international transit and you'll see the problem. Quickly compare the cost of a gigE link.
About the only "international" player that doesn't (really) have this problem is NZ. Transit to NZ is ca $5/mbit last time i looked at it.
Sure, I get <3ms latency from local servers and ~200ms latency from Freemont CA, but it's not a big deal to anyone (except maybe gamers).
I have consulted to government and banks in Australia, and they all do care (to varying degrees ) about the legal jurisdiction in which their data is held.
The main issues I have heard (from memory) are:
1. Subpoena risk - can a third party access my information without my consent (or even knowledge) using a subpoena?
2. Legal jurisdictional complication - As a business I must comply with the laws of Australia and NSW, but if a software supplier keeps their data outside of Australia, how can I prove that the supply chain complies with Australia / NSW law?
3. Lack of recourse if there is a breach / loss of data because a supplier is out of jurisdictional reach.
4. Sovereign risk - How can I be expected to track pertinent changes to law in foreign jurisdictions?
My experience is that in most cases clients don't perceive these risks as insurmountable; they do understand that they are industry wide problems that need to be addressed out, and they do in some cases lead to a preference for local suppliers of hosted software.
This hesitance to use US infrastructure due to US legislation such as the Patriot Act is only going to grow. This is an opportunity for cloud providers in regions with a good mix of infrastructure and data protection policies.
It's not the Australian government, it's only the Victoria Privacy Commissioner. The article is a beat up.
"Agencies should note it may also be possible for foreign governments to access information held in their jurisdiction or to access information held in Australia by any company with a presence in their jurisdiction.
For instance, the USA PATRIOT Act 2001 contains provisions allowing the US Government to access information in specified circumstances, (i.e. cases involving suspected terrorism or threats to national security) irrespective of the geographical location and, without necessarily advising the agency."
http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/files/2012/02/Cloud-Privacy-Bet...
Note also the second part of the first sentence - I have been told explicitly that we will never be allowed to use Amazon AWS for private information (public websites like data.gov.au already use AWS but have no private areas) even if there were physical datacenters in Australia because their US staff could be coerced under the Patriot Act to access that information and in that case would be ordered to circumvent any logging/audit trails to do so.
The article is still a beat up. The US government doesn't 'slam' anybody.
Yeah, there are a bunch of non-security reasons for this (latency, bandwidth costs, variable service costs), but in my experience it's always come down to security; and with what happened to Megaupload, the potential widespread (mis)use of National Security Letters / FISA Surveillance, and the general lacking of concrete privacy / security / SLA guarantees from the providers, it really doesn't surprise me that they're saying that putting your data overseas isn't a great idea.
There's no reason that US-based companies can't host infrastructure in Australia and certify that it's compliant with the DSD's ISM (which is part of where all of this is coming from), which itself says that it doesn't preclude the use of foreign owned service operators, but that they should ensure that information is hosted in and doesn't leave Australian borders. Which, in the context of what's above, makes 100% sense.
Is it any surprise that any country wouldn't want their data stored on US servers? Canada does the same. The USA just wants to eat it's cake and have it too.
That being said, the Australian Government (particularly Department of Defence) also doesn't allow government data on any cloud server, even those hosted inside Australia. These US cloud providers are just trying to drum up business by claiming a bias to loosen regulations, but there is no bias, just good old security policy. Tight security policy, true, but it's their data and they can direct their own employees how they want it handled.
Eventually though the walls will come down unless the functionality offered by the cloud can be duplicated on government servers, but I do think more needs to be done for security guarantees in the cloud to mature first. I have no qualms putting my own data on some 2 week old startups servers, but more serious info probably needs a little bit more consideration about where it can go.
This video content was all publicly accessible, so there was no risk of it being seized.
Read it for yourself, it's very tame: http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Australia_0.pdf
For those who don't want to read the article there is essentially one Victorian(Australia State) dept. that is "sending negative messages about cloud computing services to potential Australian customers in both the public and private sectors"
And that's pretty much it. The article is a beat up.
Hiring a 3rd party cloud provider fits under this policy, in the same way that companies don't need to set up their own ISP for transmitting data securely.
However if the government where the 3rd party is located can arbitrarily request access to the data. (Such as your Google Docs) then the policy prevents the company from using that service. This is a consequence of the US's own wiretapping laws and there will be no international change just because of a bit of "bad press".
If he says something, you can safely assume the exact opposite is right.
If most of the traffic is from Australia, it makes sense to keep it within Australia. Then we have what others have mentions: Patriot Act and the likes.
And then encourages people to buy products and services that are Australian made.
"Ok, so...I should purchase products and services from local businesses to support our own industries, but...other countries should do the opposite and buy stuff from us? Riiight..."
Gets caught with hand in cookie jar.
Demands cookies remain in jar.