
Microsoft calls for transparency over security requests - GotAnyMegadeth
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23342091
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ChikkaChiChi
This is all straw man PR at this point.

If companies were REALLY concerned with this, there would have been stories
years before Snowden came forward with titles such as "Microsoft Demands US
Government Allow More Transparency on Security Concerns with 'Potential'
Constitutional Implications"

Instead the cat is out of the bag and now all of a sudden these companies want
to talk about how the gag order is something they all hate.

Better to ask forgiveness, I guess.

~~~
xradionut
I believe this is really going to hurt their effort to sell Azure more than
anything else.

~~~
potatolicious
What's the record on the other major cloud providers?

Not snarky, serious question - my impression is that none of them have been
particularly defensive when it comes to resisting warrantless or secret-
warrant searches.

~~~
barista
Exactly the press seems to be overly happy to bash MS for this when pretty
much every online property has complied with such requests.

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mtgx
We call for Microsoft to implement end to end encryption/intuitive client side
encryption for their services if "our privacy (really) is their priority" \-
and maybe even turn Skype back to P2P. Otherwise this just seems like a
"Whoops, we got caught for allowing NSA to spy on our users since 2007 [1] -
now let's do something quick to improve our PR" type of thing.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-5.jpg)

Also, the calls for boycotting US companies over this seems to have worked
pretty well so far [2], just as I expected, and the companies are now starting
to use their money and influence to fight against the spying, in our name -
which as I've said before it may just be the only thing to change the US
government's mind over the mass spying apparatus, because I don't think having
just us complaining about it will work - short of a million-man protest in
front of the White House or a nation-wide revolution.

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/17/nsa-court-
challe...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/17/nsa-court-challenges-
tech-firms)

But I think this is merely the beginning, and it's not nearly enough [2] to
convince the US government that it needs to stop, so we need to push more with
the boycotting.

[3]
[http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/07/a_call_to_boycott_us_tech_pl...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/07/a_call_to_boycott_us_tech_plat.html)

~~~
sz4kerto
It has been written down many times that p2p messaging on mobile devices does
not really work (in Skype's case, the original p2p architecture used online
devices as temporary supernodes, draining their battery, increasing their data
usage).

~~~
narcissus
I was under the belief that it looked for nodes with things like high
bandwidth, low latency and no problems with firewalls and such. And even then,
it's not like they didn't have a clump of machines 'always on' as supernodes
anyway.

Because of all of that, I find it hard to believe that Skype would choose
mobile devices as supernodes...

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jrwoodruff
So what happens if these companies release this data without the AGs explicit
permission? Why not just ban together with Google et. al. and publish it?

