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Comment by Amorymeltzer | Hacker News Reader

>store Chinese user data within the country

The rest is expected but this to me is the most interesting one of the lot. We've seen these requests come up now and again, but I think we will be seeing the importance of "where" data is stored more and more in the upcoming years.

As a US citizen, I know that Google/Apple/Facebook/etc. have tons of data on me and acknowledge that the US gov't can generally get some of this data, but I'll be damned if those companies let Chinese/Russian/etc. governments access that data. More to the point, I don't think the US government wants information on its citizens stored elsewhere, and readily accessible to government inspection.

So let's not be naive and ask how dare China ask for the same thing. Of course they would ask that.

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Over here in europe we're asking for pretty much the same thing from US companies.

And the microsoft case regarding data stored in ireland[1] just adds more fuel to the fire.

[1] http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/1.2186247

>Over here in europe we're asking for pretty much the same thing from US companies.

New TPP agreement explicitly prohibits those laws.

>"To do so, American negotiators are leveraging trade deals with much of the developed world, inserting language to ensure “cross-border data flows”—a euphemism that actually means they want to inhibit foreign governments from keeping data hosted domestically." http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-trans-pacific-partnersh...

> Over here in europe we're asking for pretty much the same thing from US companies.

However, the reasoning is quite different.

The EU wants data stored in the EU so that it is nominally protected from hostile country intercept and is subject to EU protection laws.

Whereas, China actively intends to use the locally stored data for intercept.

Now, one can argue that the local EU governments also want to intercept the data. Nevertheless, until we see The Great Internet Wall of Europe I'm willing to give those countries a little more slack that they might actually be trying to do the right thing.

I'm sure the chinese government is genuinely concerned about foreign powers spying on their citizens, just as the US is concerned about the same thing. I don't think the fact that they both spy on their own citizens, as well as foreign citizens, makes that less relevant.

As for GFW, yeah it's evil, but I don't see how that means that the chinese government is not concerned with others spying on them.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I hate all this spying with a passion. Just saying that the motives are the same for everyone here.

Hypothetical: what if data were stored on the moon? Isn't that neutral territory?

Can't we get the same result by declaring data warehouses neutral territories for the purposes of data storage? I.e. if you run into one, you're still in whatever country the warehouse is in, but the servers themselves and the data stored on them is a neutral territory in itself.

The entire issue is kind of weird. Like, what should happen if I move from Poland to Australia? Will Microsoft have to move my data from EU datacentres to Australian ones? What if it was just one hacker in Australia logging into my account after resetting the password via a phishing attack? What if it's actually the Australian government (well, a cybersecurity branch of it) that does so, in order to force the data to move to Australia and then use their laws to forbid me from accessing it, while they do whatever they damn please with it?

> As a US citizen, I know that Google/Apple/Facebook/etc. have tons of data on me and acknowledge that the US gov't can generally get some of this data, but I'll be damned if those companies let Chinese/Russian/etc. governments access that data.

I see this a lot, but I don't understand the viewpoint at all. Surely, as a US citizen, you should be concerned about your information finding its way into the US government? Why would you care what the Chinese government knows about you? What are they going to do?

Yes, surely it is considerably more concerning when it's the government that already exercises physical jurisdiction over you.

The reason is racism and propaganda. You really couldn't figure that one out?

> What are they going to do?

Blackmail you into doing something illegal, including, but not limited to, stealing trade secrets from your employer to be shared with state-backed companies. The reach of foreign countries doesn't stop at their borders.

I wonder what limitations exist for storing server farms in a satellite or in international waters. Or in weather balloons and UAV's...a la Project Loon and whatever Facebook did with those ever flying UAV's

rdl tried that with HavenCo/SeaLand but it was unsuccessful, largely, I believe, due to corrupt/incompetent "government" influence.

Even if you locate your server farm outwith unfriendly jurisdiction, you still need to connect it to the rest of the world, and it's difficult to do that without engaging the services of a company that is susceptible to influence by an unfriendly government. You're also susceptible to being effectively (if not literally) sanctioned via the financial system.

Sidestepping jurisdictional issues altogether by operating entirely virtually is a better bet right now (c.f. ASICminer).

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