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from the obsolete-voluntary-guidelines-solution dept.
Steve Durbin of the ISF was interviewed regarding the fallout after Snowden and the push by governments and organizations to try and wrestle some control of their communications away from the US.
"From a European point of view it fuelled political hysteria." He adds that regardless of one's opinion on the value of this type of surveillance there are political gains to be made from stirring up a reaction to Snowden's disclosures.
The idea of having an EU internet, Russian internet, US internet, etc doesn't sit well with Durbin because he feels it will hurt the functionality and that governments by themselves cannot actually get the job done.
"Government can't do it all", he warns when reflecting on proposed regulatory responses to privacy and surveillance issues. "By the time they get their act together, the world and technology has moved on significantly."
As a reminder in February the German government started discussing an EU internet:
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel "is proposing building up a European communications network to help improve data protection" and prevent European emails and other data passing through the United States where it can be, and has been, harvested by the NSA.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Thursday June 12 2014, @06:14AM
Each country would probably have their own set of policies for their country. I am unable to understand how this will help prevent the US three letter agency or any other agency from infiltrating these networks ?? Would somebody be good enough to provide an explanation ?
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by monster on Thursday June 12 2014, @08:43AM
They are not only policies. There's a massive overhaul of the backbone also in the works.
Take the EU-Brazil proposed line, for example. Right now, if you want to send an email from Germany to Brazil it goes through UK (hello, GCHQ!), the North Atlantic to USA (hello, NSA and company!) and then to South America. It doesn't matter if you use an Europe-based email provider and send to a Brazil-based email provider, foreign agencies get your emails too if they want (and, as Snowden showed, yes they want). Same with any other traffic, not just email. With the proposed direct cable, both GCHQ and NSA stay out of the route unless hostile action (like tapping the fibre, which is both limited and expensive).
It would be like if you commute through a very bad neighbourghood, you decide to search alternative routes to avoid it, and one of the pimps calls you hysteric :)