It’s SO funny how apparently for almost 20 years we (as in the west outside the USA) decided that using Chinese cloud platforms or networking hardware was dangerous and to be avoided, but private US companies? Nothing to see here!
Silver lining of the orange man is that maybe countries will wake up and smell the digital sovereignty that we sorely lack.
just vassals lol
Can EU please make an open source phone?
We have linux for computers, but we need a “linux” for phones (yes I know Android uses Linux Kernel, I’m talking about like a Libre Non-Google OS)
I have another question: why do some eras seem to be so free for technology to evolve and open to new entrants to create their designs and mods and why do other eras feel like traps set by investors and enclosures for consumers? The 80s/90s felt great for technology, but today it feels like they all want to take anyone’s capacity to do anything beyond being a dumb paying consumer away…like they’re covering all possible outcomes to come out enslaving everyone. Why didn’t they do that in the 80s/90s? Am I looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses?
Does Graphene OS fit that description?
It only works on Google Pixel phones.
There are other operating systems, and some more open (but more expensive) manufacturers like Fairphone and PinePhone.
I’m holding my breath for the pinephone to be ready for primetime. I check in on it every so often to see what the current buzz is.
U have several fork of android some are great. The issue is I need google service for a lot of proprietary app like uber, banking app etc. Linux phone exist but without an appstore it s useless
That’s kind of the point. The EU could theoretically demand some Linux support from banks. It wouldn’t be a popular decision at first, but the consumer protection agency is capable of that, banks are capable of that, and it would help a lot.
I don’t think it would happen, it’s cheaper for banks to lobby against it than do a bare minimum, lobbying is cheaper than anything, but still, neat idea.
So how are American companies any different then Chinese? Everyone always says Chinese companies have to listen to their government. Never got how American companies would be any different.
One is Chinese (bad, stinky) one is American (good, freedom).
Both are authoritarian shitholes that violate the freedoms of its citizens.
Time to listen to this banger again
They’re not different at all - the CLOUD Act (2018) and FISA courts already gave the US govt near-complete access to American tech companies’ data regarldess of where it’s physically stored, we just don’t talk about it as much as we do with China.
Until this abomination of a law, the US was different. But the GOP is quickly adopting every fascist idea they come across.
Until this abomination of a law, the US was different.
Press X to doubt.
It’s like he selectively forgot about the Snowden leaks
No they werent lmfaooo
Until this abomination of a law
The “patriot” act would like to have a word with you…
People keep forgetting that.
Is this still earth 50? Because Luthor is still president (with an orange tan and a toupé).
If the EU doesn’t combine forces to get out of this tech-dependency, than what do we have the EU for? I am a big fan the EU, it’s doing many things for us already, but I’m really hoping we can work our way out of this together, and I hope we choose the FOSS-route so that we significantly help the world forward
I think our problem is a mix of corruption and tech illiteracy in the European parliament. People are either too deep in the pockets of silicon valley, or they are lazy fucks who don’t understand anything about computers and are unwilling to learn, so they keep believing “Windows is easier”.
Why are there no major competitors outside the USA? Is there no “Silicon Valley” in the EU?
Because the one in the US is working out so well for humanity right?
Fuck Silicon Valleys. Use and support open standards and software.
I mean yes duh but wouldn’t it be great to have European owned data centers running Linux?
YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP, LETS GOOOOOOOO!
I have been saying this for more than a decade. Shit like this is why privacy laws and stuff regarding warrants and other stuff need to be expanded to private entities as much, if not more so, than government agencies. In the past the idea of a company having that much access to people’s information was unthinkable, and in almost everyone’s mind it was governments we needed to be worried about.
But that hasn’t been true since the 90s at least with credit cards being used for most stuff and internet purchases being the norm for almost everything.
Governments in the past needed something to ask for permission to look into you… but companies never did, and since the only thing governments need to do is either buy it or ask nicely it makes many protections kinda moot. The fact that many countries want a strict surveillance state over everyone means even the classic protections we had for a brief while are disappearing, too.
If there ever is a 2nd enlightenment with protections for people it needs to make the stuff written in the 18th and 19th century look like children’s toys in comparison.
If you say ‘but what about terrorism and bad people?’ Look around you. They still exist and still rarely get caught unless they fuck up badly. Most of the time it still due to informants and people talking to authorities. In the US the murder rate resolution is only 50% (and that is just arrested and charged, not convicted) and this is because there is a massive distrust of the police. In other countries people are more likely to assist the police and/or they take their jobs far more seriously in terms of forensics… and on top of that they usually have a far lower murder rate which allows more time and resources to be funneled into solving major crimes.
Better to let 100 guilty men go than 1 innocent person convicted is the usual motto, but they don’t believe that in practice. In reality they are very much kill them all and let God sort out his own. And we can’t keep allowing that shit to happen.
*shocked pikachu*
Then those EU firms should immediately make getting out of anything and everything Microsoft a top priority. As a US citizen, all our government and companies understand is personal profit and personal data hording. So make it hurt where they will feel it.
lol any EU bureaucrat who thinks otherwise is either a useful idiot or themselves compromised?
Suprised Pikachu
It’s weird that this was something that Microsoft would have to admit, considering “The CLOUD Act” has made this mandatory for all US based companies anywhere they operate in the world. This has been a law since 2018.
Anyone wonder where your country’s health records about all their citizens are stored? I’m guessing it’s all on either MS, AWS, or Google. That means Trump could get access to your medical history.
This is important because of his attacks on LGBTQ people, vaccines, abortion, autism, and who knows what other nonsense he wants to persecute.
And here in Canada the Liberal government is putting forth bill C-2, which opens up even more access to the US to get even records stored in Canada by Canadian companies.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/canadas-bill-c-2-opens-floodgates-us-surveillance
Feel safe yet?
Actually it’s all in Palantir, so we’re totally safe with this non-villain coded company.
I am from the Netherlands and work at a hospital, we exclusively use Microsoft software.
Here in Italy all family doctors use Gmail for safety data regularly
Damn. That’s a fucking paradox if I’ve ever seen one.
In the case of Germany: confidential computing tech ensures all data is encrypted in storage and in memory, shielded even against data center employees / hosting providers. I imagine that’s become the standard for most countries.
Hmm. Policies might say so. Not every business follow policies, whether they are their own or imposed ones, though. Business going all “it’s ok, our provider have the correct certifications for data handling” are definitely a thing.
Most EU countries are single payer healthcare. Businesses develop the software, but it’s vetted by a government entity before acceptance.
Again for Germany, it’s handled by a single provider, and they absolutely do utilize CoCo tech. (Source: I work at one of the involved companies, sorry, not going to be more specific)
Only if they aren’t using customer provided encryption keys (is using blob/bucket storage) or an equivalent approach to encryption at rest, and make sure they’re doing standard TLS for encryption in flight.
It’s absolutely possible, and standard for any decent organization, to build their cloud architectures to fully account for the cloud provider potentially accessing your data without authorization. I’ve personally had such design conversations multiple times.
It is possible to do things correctly. The question is, is it done often, and is it done on hardware you can trust. I’m somewhat confident if I run my services on bare metal, the provider would have a hard time getting my encryption keys, although it’s not impossible even in this situation. How many people do so with VPS and managed instances, where snooping around the runtime and exfiltrating data unbeknownst to the user is trivial?
Also, beyond that, how many fall for the convenience of things like SSE, whether it’s with customer provided keys or not? That should be a red flag, but people find it oh so convenient.
We’re bound to see stuff bubble out where “we did all the right things” boils down to clicking a checkbox in some web UI and be done with it in the future.
I mean. They’re a USA company. Of course they would be required to follow the laws of the country in which they HQ. Did anyone think anything different?
This is what data sovereignty is for.
Well pretty sure local laws here say that certain data should stay within the countries borders (like data from accounting firms) so I hope they also encrypted everything to prevent this carrot from accessing it.
It’s encrypted, I’m sure. But I highly doubt it’s e2ee. It’s likely as the eula alludes to (end to server to end). So… accessible by MS.
Their EULA can’t break our national law, so it can still be e2e encrypted and not accessible by MS
Can, would, should. All words to define "not sure if ‘is’.
