Bugged by US spying, EU may sever ties with American internet providers

[dipsydoodle]

Source: RT News

EU businesses are threatening to terminate relations with American internet providers in response to the National Security Agency surveillance scandal, the European Commission has warned.

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, said that US providers of ‘cloud services,’ a technology that permits clients to store data on remote servers, could suffer steep losses if users fear the security of their material is at risk of being compromised.

"If businesses or governments think they might be spied on, they will have less reason to trust cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out,” Kroes said. “Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes?"

The EC vice president then pointed to the “multi-billion euro consequences” facing US internet companies in the wake of the scandal.



Read more: http://rt.com/news/us-eu-prism-snowden-trade-694/

[dbackjon]

1. That will get the attention of the Corporate States of America

[Mojorabbit]

13. Probably the only way anything will be done to stop this. Hit in the wallet. nt

[Moonwalk]

2. Makes sense; they should have their own internet servers to spy on them....

[FrodosPet]

41. But Europe is civilized and educated

They are not at all xenophobic and paranoid. They would NEVER spy on their own citizens.



I suppose it's because they are too busy helping the NSA by spying on us!

(Anybody who thinks other countries are not spying on American citizens, as well as their own, please raise your hand)

[Autumn]

3. That would get the US governments attention.

I hope they do it.

[jeff47]

4. Is it too much to ask for reporters to bother finding out

how the Internet works before writing their stories?

I know the various politicians are beyond hope, but journalists should spend a few minutes reading about a topic before writing a story about it.

[dipsydoodle]

6. If China can block Google for example

then I'm sure the EU could manage.

[jeff47]

7. That would be relevant if blocking Google would stop the spying.

But there's no particular reason the NSA can only "spy" via Google. Or any other US entity.

[caseymoz]

9. Then they'll put money into changing the architecture

and then bypass our providers. This scandal does threaten to change the way other countries deal with the US, big time. The result is it's going to hurt our economy.

The NSA might have other ways to do surveillance, but it seems the mass surveillance is done off US providers and Internet companies. AT&T, Verizon, Google and if it were easier to do it another way, I think the NSA would be doing it.

[jeff47]

20. "The architecture" is already not US-centric.

There's no particular reason a packet has to go through the US. In fact, it's unlikely that a packet will go through the US unless it's travelling to the US, one of our neighbors, or going between Europe and Asia. So there's no particular reason the NSA's spying can only happen through US providers.

This scandal does threaten to change the way other countries deal with the US, big time.

Only because you, the author of this article, and the bloviating politicians quoted therein don't understand how the Internet works.

[chrislindsay23]

28. that's why they get cozy...

With foriegn providers. Look at Hong Kong and the revelations there about the telecoms colluding with the U.S. spy apparatus, via Snowden.
There may be little safety. If the Euros choose to build it, couldn't we just break it anyhow?

[caseymoz]

31. I used to do maintenance on the Internet for a large ISP.

Last edited Sat Jul 6, 2013, 06:21 AM - Edit history (1)

And the "You peons with your puny minds do not understand the Internet" bullshit is a pretty damn lazy way to dismiss the argument while excusing yourself from from the responsibility of explaining a thing. There may be no reason for packets to get routed through the US, but there has also been no reason for them to avoid the US up until now.

I know the backbones were in the the US, but that was in 2002 when I lost my job, which-- it turns out-- to have likely had an odd association with the government's surveillance program.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

42. We seem to have similar backgrounds

And I wholeheartedly agree with you. I make it a point to never try to lord over people with technical speak--it's just a way to try to intimidate people into shutting up. I will, however, go on a technical attack when I see someone doing this, eg, claiming that it's impossible to span-port and capture a provider's entire feed at a peering point. That's trivial to accomplish, so long as you have physical access. But I only engage and take down those who act as though they have special insight that you just wouldn't understand because its too technical. Why do something like this? We all specialize. Doctors and nurses could make me feel like an idiot in a medical conversation-but they don't. I'm not cool with knowledge-of-tech is used as a cudgel, especially given that this knowledge is often very flawed.

[Egnever]

47. I think the point that was trying to be made was

The writer of this article and basically whoever is talking about severing ties with US providers has no real understanding of how the internet works or they wouldn't be spouting such nonsense.

I agree that lording knowledge over people is tacky but so is writing sensation headlines based on ignorance. I think that was the point.

What is being proposed in this article while physically possible would cause a disruption in communications world wide and is not really an option.

[KurtNYC]

48. RT, the source, is Russian propaganda written for the US market

They are just selling their angle IMHO. They know how the internet works but just like Keebler claims that their cookies are "made by little elves in a hollow tree", RT can play loose with the facts.

[Kolesar]

24. Rt.com has low standards

They favor hyperbole and sowing propaganda.

[KoKo]

30. Really? Do you have Links to support your Opinion?

Without Links....why should you be believed beyond "Opinion Post?"

Just asking...because I'd like to hear what you read that gave you the opinion you are posting.

[truedelphi]

5. Yep, why should Europeans put up with our spying.

And the governments spy too, yada yada yada, but no where near the level our government does.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

16. Europeans should put up with "our" spying because it's the Republicans' fault and Obama doesn't have

votes to stop it.

[truedelphi]

32. Puh LEASE! The Dems have two top notch Democratic Senators

In control of the Senate Oversight Committee. Both McCaskill and Feinstein see the Total Surveillance Society as part of the gravy train that will enrich their families beyond belief.

In our culture, you don't get to be President or to be a top tier Democratic Senator unless you have allied yourself with the MIC +Surveillance society

[ReRe]

39. So PO must have allied with those two before he announced he was running for POTUS? n/t

[truedelphi]

45. My personal belief is that Obama made a decison right after the election of 2008.

It started with economic matters - after all, what experience and knowledge did he have as a Junior Senator from Illinois, about how economic matters really work? So he agreed to rubber stamp first Paulson (Then the head of Fed reserve,) and then he went on to have Geithner appointed.

The PTB wore him down. I forget which of the big huge bloated military Appropriations' bill it was that Obama signed, and then from that moment on, the media really favored hi. Butter would melt in their mouths when they mentioned him. (Not Faux News, but the other alphabet stations had Talking Heads that liked him.) He was carrying water for the Proper Authorities.

On edit - the Appropriations' Bill for Summer 2010 - thirty three billions of dollars for the war on Afghanistan.)

[defacto7]

8. For the last three years

I have been directly warning schools, businesses and individuals with which I am associated not to trust cloud technology with their sensitive personal and business data for the very reasons mentioned concerning surveillance, illegal activity and the hazards of centralizing all their data, and more... all on deaf ears.

I think computer technology has become too much/too easy too soon for most companies, governments, organizations and individuals. No one has had the necessary opportunity to learn the realities of the machine.

[truedelphi]

33. What is their response? I am curious about a person's usual take on this.

The newer computers don't have storage built in any more. I hope we continue to have memory sticks available (and what not.)

I was against Cloud Computing just because of the nature of the Corporate Beast. They can offer up decent prices and good service, but the day they go bankrupt, what happens then? The novel you have in the cloud, the photos, the financial reports and billing and receivables for any company your are running are all disappeared into thin air. It was too intangible to me.

[defacto7]

36. What is their response?

Usually it's just dead space and no action. People want what they want. They fall for any seeming luxury that comes along without any knowledge of the problems they can face in the long run and that is what the software companies want; they want people dumb and pacified, unable to take care of themselves or their machines. The only way software companies can control their products and protect their income is to control the data and from control of the data, they can control the hardware and you own nothing. The Pandora's box? Through that system all our information is vulnerable to loss, unlawful or unconstitutional scrutiny, and about anything you can imagine that our information could be used for. All of a sudden, people have given away control of their own personal information to whomever or just the ethers.

Just for a short example of one of my own experiences, I have run the tech systems for 2 private schools in the past. Both wanted to move to cloud based systems where all student, teacher, family, grading, behavioral, personal administrative notes and comments were to be stored up in "clouds ville" with no locally stored mechanism for ownership of their entire operation. This was about 3 years ago and I gave them the full backdrop of what they could be walking into. I also gave them several options for security and backup. Their response? Rolling eyes, Deer in the headlights look, that, "what an idiot, behind the times, not up with the cutting edge look". I refused to offer my services past that point. Now, they are so entrenched in their cloud system, they have no idea how to take care of their own property or the information of some thousand students without the extremely expensive help lords like Pierson and the like who are glad to help them with their ignorance for $20,000 a year or more. But they still don't have their own data. And they are stuck with it!

I've been running systems and servers for years and I have watched people run over the proverbial sheep cliff and it is most bizarre to watch people get stupider and more dependent when it comes to Internet and the business of technology that it's just a face/palm a minute. It's like the whole country is jumping off the cliff just because corporate media tells them it's the cutting edge of computing pleasure.

Just for the record without expanding, M$ and Apple are definitely on my shit list where the dumbing of the masses is concerned.

All I can say as a general warning... don't put anything of a secure nature on the Internet that you can't stand to loose or post anything on the Internet that that you don't want the human race to know about. Keep hard copies on site (so old school) and know your systems and how it works so your stuff is not vulnerable to some software savior that has no other purpose but to make you even more vulnerable. Vulnerability pays.

[truedelphi]

46. Thanks. I am sorry to hear that you have lost income because although you are

Pointing people into the right direction, you are not status quo.

I got my RE license way back in 1979, but I gave it up. People wanted hype and more hype. They wouldn't buy a $ 75K home from me that was in a good area and had a savings of 15K built into it - they wanted that "$ 220,000 home" in a new subdivision, which they were able to buy for only $ 65K. When the ceiling of the "$ 220,000 home" fell in on them a month after they moved in, they finally got my message, but it was too late then. By then, the developer had skipped town.

Your warning is heeded, and again, thanks.

[ellie]

10. hahahahahahaha!

This makes me laugh. I hope this is true.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Hey, you, get off of my cloud

[GliderGuider]

12. DUZY!!!

[Mojorabbit]

27. LOL :) nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

14. Well, they could always just do business with each other. Oh wait.....it's the EU.

Another preposterous story from Pootie Poot's state owned media outlet.

[JDPriestly]

15. No. The EU suspects that the US is stealing the trade secrets of EU countries.

This is for real.

I read about this problem earlier.

This is for real. The massive surveillance has to stop. It presents so many problems. No government should be just sweeping up electronic data indiscriminately.

[jeff47]

22. Well, various EU states have been caught stealing US trade secrets

That stopped all US-EU trade, right?

The most famous cases come from the 1990s when France stole aerospace and microchip secrets from US companies.

So we stopped all trade with France after that, right? Imposed massive penalties and sanctions?

[Tarheel_Dem]

25. Is France still part of the EU? Someone should tell Francois. He's screaming the loudest.

Lotta egg on his face right about now.

5 July 2013 Last updated at 13:24 ET

French PM Ayrault says spy programme claims 'inexact'

"The official said the information could only be accessed "if the prime minister so decided after advice from the CNCIS," the National Commission of Security Interceptions Control.

The DGSE data is accessed by other French intelligence agencies, French officials have rejected reports its intelligence agencies are running a vast spying operation on its citizens."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23201769

Here's the reason Hollande is trying to deflect attention:

Hollande’s Approval Rating Drops to New Low, BVA Poll Shows

By Mark Deen - Jun 24, 2013

"French President Francois Hollande’s approval rating dropped to a new low, suggesting a recovery in May was just a blip, a poll by BVA Opinion showed.

About 31 percent of voters have a “good opinion” of the Socialist president, down from 61 percent just after his election a year ago and from 35 percent in May, BVA said in a survey for L’Express magazine and Radio France."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-24/hollande-s-approval-rating-drops-to-new-low-bva-poll-shows.html

[dipsydoodle]

19. You missed out they could always do business

with Russia, China, Asia.........and leave the US to fuck itself.

[dbackjon]

23. yes, because China, Russia etc

Are pure bastions of freedom and never, ever spy on anyone, or steal trade secrets...

[Tarheel_Dem]

26. Aren't they already doing that?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

17. Do it!

[Rstrstx]

18. It's a good idea that may make the US government come around to their senses

Though any company that had sensitive information would be foolish to store it in the cloud, especially unencrypted. I can see an emerging market for internet services that are guaranteed to be privacy assured, and they would not necessarily have to be based in Europe (after all who says the Europeans aren't doing the same things? The French?). If a startup based in the US wanted to offer this kind of service now would be the perfect time to do it, the US gov't is in a bind right now, turning them down would look really bad and could cause a not insignificant hit to the economy.

[L0oniX]

21. As you can tell from my sig line ...I am pro-bug ...and anti-monitor...

except for my monitor.

[KoKo]

29. Much Talk and Bravado...they won't do this.

THEY OWE US for WWII...so there's what will come of it. NOTHING...

[Heywood J]

40. Really?

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.

I forgot who said that. Must have been some European. Oh, wait - it was JFK.

I guess, by your standards, that the US still owes France for that help during the Revolutionary War.

[BillyRibs]

34. Looks like the chickens,

Are coming home to roost!

[blkmusclmachine]

35. EU has their own Big Brother network -

Stop acting so innocent.

[defacto7]

37. Data is easy....

It's about time people start to realize the magnitude of this and start making smarter decisions concerning what they want the world to know... and what they don't want the world to know... and act wisely in that respect.

Take nothing for granted.

[Fearless]

38. "Could be" compromised?

How much more compromised can you get?

[Katashi_itto]

43. But...but....Snowdens just lying.....!!!!

Damn good news! EU should hit back.

[madrchsod]

44. it`s the fox news of russia...RT news