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Microsoft on Australian Health Record Data Security

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Renegade:
This is just bizarre:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/microsoft-attacks-the-gillard-governments-plan-to-store-e-health-records-in-australia/story-e6frg6nf-1226205148994

"By regulating the geography where the data is held rather than the level of security under which it is held implicitly establishes criteria for data protection that are not related to principles of technology security.
--- End quote ---

While the data security part is right - location is irrelevant - the physical security and legal/jurisdictional security is another. Like who in their right mind would put national data in the US with legislation like the PATRIOT Act that affords nobody any protection from anything the government wants to do? That's just nutty.

Or any other place? Why would you put sensitive (national) data in the trust of foreign nationals and out of the physical reach of the Australian government?

Seems a tad wonky to me.

40hz:
How nice of USA-based Microsoft, acting as a purely disinterested outside party, to put their tuppence in on some Australian draft legislation. What a bunch of swell guys!  ;) ;D

f0dder:
Hm, paywall.

MS is right in that the physical location doesn't necessary make the data safer, though... especially for the same reasons you mention yourself.

There's three things to consider:
1) national laws where the servers are hosted
2) registered nationality of company hosting your data (Amerikan companies have to hand out data to NSA/FBI/whateverTLA on request, regardless of where their servers are hosted, because of TPA).
3) encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption.

With all that in mind, I'd still wish all government would do the fscking only sensible thing: build their own clouds, using open source technology, and not having it hosted by a third party.

Renegade:
With all that in mind, I'd still wish all government would do the fscking only sensible thing: build their own clouds, using open source technology, and not having it hosted by a third party.
-f0dder (November 24, 2011, 03:44 PM)
--- End quote ---

Amen to that!

Given how intrusive legislation in the US is, and how all protections have been removed, I can't see anyone that's sane allowing sensitive information to be hosted there.

But about this:

2) registered nationality of company hosting your data (Amerikan companies have to hand out data to NSA/FBI/whateverTLA on request, regardless of where their servers are hosted, because of TPA).
--- End quote ---

If MS had an Australian subsidiary, wouldn't it not be subject to US prying eyes?

f0dder:
2) registered nationality of company hosting your data (Amerikan companies have to hand out data to NSA/FBI/whateverTLA on request, regardless of where their servers are hosted, because of TPA).
--- End quote ---
If MS had an Australian subsidiary, wouldn't it not be subject to US prying eyes?-Renegade (November 24, 2011, 04:17 PM)
--- End quote ---
IANAL, but I wouldn't bet on it. And it's one of the reasons I wouldn't even consider letting a Danish company handle a governmental cloud.

We had this company doing a lot of govt business, including a lot of police systems, the central person register, et cetera. They got bought up by CSC. Which country is CSC originally from? Yep, you're right.

There's not a lot of public talk about the Carnivore boxes located at every ISP edge location with direct feeds not just to the Danish intelligence service, but also the NSA. They did a pretty fscking ingenious move - enforced data logging (very publicly known), pretty useless crap (source+destination IP and port, IP protocol time, timestamp, and a full packet capture of every however-many packets) - useless, fscking expensive for the ISPs to implement and maintain.. and a DOYCdamn red herring.

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