Comment by vladgur
4 months ago
If we take "Israel" out of the equation to remove much of controversy, i dont understand why wouldnt any actor, especially government actor, take every possible step that their data remains under their sole control.
In other words, im curious why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest and in transit by keys not stored in that cloud.
This seems like a matter of national security for any government, not to have their data accessible by other parties at the whims of different jurisdiction where that cloud vendor operates.
> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
Conversely, if you don't, it's not hard to understand at all when you consider that there are oodles of American politicians, at all levels, actually publicly declaring that they put Israeli interests over US interests. What's hard to understand about _that_ is that, for some reason, it's not considered pure and simple treason.
It would still be very alarming if a democratic country like Australia or European Union taking a step like this where they tell the vendor that it will use its data and service in whatever way it sees fit, and sidestep existing policies those vendors have on the uses of their services and data.
Now maybe we can say that Israel is not a democratic system or environment, but then Microsoft would not be wholly desiring to do business serving such an entity, lest they break with US oversight.
Israel here told the vendor that whenever there is a gag on them by their government against making Israel aware of their request, the vendor is to secretly transmit a message alerting them..
Because it is obviously illegal, violates both the letter and spirit of American law.
Also because no other country has the power to get cloud vendors to do this and this one special country will face no consequences (as usual).
From the article:
"The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world"
"Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations."
The way I interpret this is Google, Amazon operates in multiple countries under multiple jurisdictions. The security services for any of these countries(including for example Egypt where Google has offices according to....Google), can produce a legal(in Egypt) order requesting Google to produce data of another customer( for example Israeli govt) and Google has to comply or leave Egypt.
It seems to me that being under constant threat of your government sensitive data being exposed at the whims of another, potentially adversarial government is not a sustainable way of operating and Im surprised that Israel havent either found ways of storing its infrastructure locally or encrypting it five way to Sunday.
This is not a comment on the specific accusation of actions by Israel but for strange reality of being a small-country government and a customer of a multi-national cloud vendor.
> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
No, I don't think I will.
Since when is talking about Israel controversial?
> why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest
If it's encrypted in the cloud, it also cannot be processed in the cloud. For AI in particular that kinda defeats the point.
It's not irrelevant that it's Israel in question. There's not many countries that have been found to be committing genocide (by UN), are actively involved in a war or where the leaders are sought by ICC.
The UN has made no such ruling. Committees don't speak for the UN.
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For every killed Israeli in the attacks on the 7th of October, Israel went and killed 18 children in retaliation. If that is not genocide then I don't know what is.
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> Redefines the meaning of genocide to fit the shape of the conflict -- a war started by Hamas on Oct 7
My man, Israel had a blockade surrounding Palestine on all sides for years prior. October 7th was a retaliation for a lot of the pain Israel had inflicted on Palestine (sorry- Greater Israel). And Bibi was well in the know and all too happy to let it happen.
> largely ignores role of Hamas in the conflict
Bibi loved and loves Hamas. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons. A lot of them.
It's like David and Goliath, except in this case David is malnourished to the extreme, has no future, no present, no past except seeing his family and friends bombed to oblivion....and only can attack Goliath with a few pebbles. Meanwhile, Goliath has plot armor and nukes.
>Frames the country as a "settler-colonial" project ignoring realities of jewish history in the region.
And not ignoring Palestine, which had existed for 12 centuries before the birth of Christ?
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> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
Then this whole story would disintegrate.
I am baffled by the manufactured outrage this story is generating. "oh no. <country> is sidestepping the NSA which we loudly proclaim to be evil at every opportunity, and (gasp) imposing their own conditions and bullying gigantic tech companies which are even more evil."
This from the same group of people who insist that europe should host their own data.
>Then this whole story would disintegrate.
American companies sidestepping law related to international relationships between the US and other countries in order to benefit a foreign state??
That story would disintegrate? In what universe?
> American companies sidestepping law related to international relationships between the US and other countries in order to benefit a foreign state??
Assuming it's even true, there is no side-stepping international relations between the US and other countries.
If Egypt were to issue a legal order with a gag clause ordering Amazon to release Israeli data, and Amazon were to signal that fact to Israel, how does this involve the US at all?
Seems like you did not understand the story.