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US Government: You Don't Own Your Cloud Data So We Can Access It At Any Time | 241 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Apple loses right to iPhone brand in Mexico
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 02 2012 @ 01:57 PM EDT
http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/11/01/mexican.ifone.registered.trade.nam
e.four.years.before.apple/

They had some serious balls to try that.

Claiming that the guys who registered the trademark first are infringing on
their trademark reminds me of the McDonalds chippie lawsuits.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft Cloud Floats to China (Without Microsoft)
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 02 2012 @ 11:08 PM EDT
Wired: Microsoft Cloud Floats to China (Without Microsoft)

Microsoft’s cloud is coming to China. But Microsoft isn’t coming with it.

On Thursday, the software giant said that its cloud services Windows Azure and Office 365 will be served up from China to Chinese users, but these Chinese offerings will be handled by 21Vianet, a data center services company based in the country.

Microsoft decision to license the technology — rather than serve up the services itself — is significant. According to an announcement issued by 21Vianet, the service will be subject to Chinese law, not U.S. law.

If I recall correctly, Microsoft had planned early in their "cloud" effort to license out their platform to third parties. Being a cloud provider requires large capital investments in data centres, and thus lower returns on investment than just selling software.

Microsoft started their own data centres for two reasons. One is that the product simply wasn't ready to license out to companies who simply wanted to operate a service. The other is that there really wasn't much interest at the prices that Microsoft was demanding.

The Office365 mention is a very important detail. From what I have been able to determine, this is what customers are interested in. Or rather, they're interested in hosted Exchange/Outlook e-mail service. Office365 sales are cannibalizing Microsoft's regular Exchange/Outlook sales to corporate customers who want to outsource their e-mail service (which is more or less a commodity now). Operating an Exchange server is difficult and expensive, so it is something that customers want to get rid of. Microsoft was forced into this because the alternative was to watch Google eat away at their business with the corporate version of Google's GMail (which you pay for, but does not have ads).

The other "cloud" product that Microsoft has is their "Azure" platform, which like Google's AppEngine lets you run your own custom software on their servers. Azure (and AppEngine) require you to write your software specifically for their platform and you are limited in what you can do. It's not as flexible as having a bare server, but it also requires a lot less management on your part.

The giant in cloud platforms however is Amazon's AWS. This requires more management, but it gives you a lot more flexibility. This has proven to be a lot more popular in practice, and the various open source cloud efforts either duplicate AWS functionality or provide a direct (but incompatible) equivalent.

All in all, I think what we are seeing here is Microsoft attempting to spread their Office365 sales while getting around the US Patriot Act. Microsoft can't directly sell Office365 to many customers because US laws would require them to wiretap access for US spy agencies, and in most countries that would be espionage. Having other companies offer the actual service gets around this. This is a problem that Google hasn't really addressed yet with their own products.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

You (eventually) reap what you sow
Authored by: pem on Friday, November 02 2012 @ 11:16 PM EDT
For the first time ever, the percentage of iPhone owners who say they definitely or probably will buy another Apple phone has declined, according to Strategy Analytics. And negative press is partly to blame, the firm says.
Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Mr. Goodwin has yet to demonstrate whether he has an interest
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 02:24 AM EDT
Time for a Church dedicated to the vision of the prophet Franz Kafka.
First make Mr Goodwin prove that he owned any data, and that if
such data was ever on Carpathia's servers action of the government
or its agents has caused such data to no longer be available.
Subject of course to Mr Goodwin proving that the contract he
had with Megaupload and the contract they had with Carpathia
guaranteed in any way unfettered and perpetual access to his data.

Observe that the Government cannot permit Mr Goodwin to prove
ownership of his data, or any copies of it on Carpathia's servers.
Apart from the unsolvable snake pit of who owns the ephemeral copies
of data that whizz around the intertubes, the government has, in the
words of many on slashdot, just declared the death of cloud storage
as presently operated. There will still be plenty unaware of this
should it become precedent.

While the government itself goes into plausible deniability mode,

> [T]he government has stated, it does not possess Mr. Goodwin’s
> data and never did.

https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/Govt_41(g)_filing.pdf

My problem is my trusted family members being at that nomadic age
where I have to reconfigure my private cloud every time one moves
to a new apartment.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

US Government: You Don't Own Your Cloud Data So We Can Access It At Any Time
Authored by: tknarr on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 04:57 AM EDT

My immediate counter: "So let me get this straight: it's the government's position that I don't own any property I put in a rented storage unit? It's the same thing, I'm placing my property in someone else's facility under a contract whereby for some consideration they provide storage space for my property."

Of course, if the government's position holds up, it may mess up copyright law when it comes to digital data. If I don't own the data once it's sent to someone else, then the copyright holders don't own the data when they send it to me. And since the government's position seems to be that any contract saying I retain ownership is irrelevant, any contract or license agreement the copyright owners try to impose would likewise be irrelevant. I'd love to see that one litigated. :)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Ridiculous - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 06:43 AM EDT
    • Ridiculous - Authored by: kuroshima on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 06:57 AM EDT
    • Ridiculous - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 07:42 AM EDT
    • Ridiculous - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 08:14 AM EDT
    • Ridiculous - Authored by: tknarr on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 01:03 PM EDT
UK takes major step towards competition, innovation in software market
Authored by: tiger99 on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 08:20 AM EDT
Obligatory link, so I will not be chastised. like last time, when it scrolls off the bottom of the page.

:-)

I must say that I am astonished that politicians of any flavour can get something so important so very close to being right. It is not "quite" right, because the proper thing is to utterly ban software patents, and although software as such can no longer be patented in the UK (allegedly), some patents are still being awarded which do indeed affect software. Nonetheless it is excellent progress.

I am really impressed with the need to calculate exit costs. That should kill Swearpoint dead about 10 times over....

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Rejoice! - Authored by: stegu on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 09:06 AM EDT
WRONG - Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months with zero instruction
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 03 2012 @ 02:15 PM EDT
The kids were using "Motorola Zoom tablet PCs"

not OLPCs

I made the same mistake too :(

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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