Microsoft says it can't promise data sovereignty for EU firms
  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    25·
    5 days ago

    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)

    • Gsus4@mander.xyzEnglish
      4·
      5 days ago

      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?

    • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      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.

    • bigmamoth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      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

      • Nalivai@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        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.

      • 18107@aussie.zoneEnglish
        6·
        5 days ago

        It only works on Google Pixel phones.

        There are other operating systems, and some more open (but more expensive) manufacturers like Fairphone and PinePhone.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    5 days ago

    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.

  • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • TomMasz@piefed.socialEnglish
    13·
    6 days ago

    There’s no telling if that hasn’t already happened. Europe needs to drop Microsoft ASAP.

  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    6 days ago

    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?

    • lemonskate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        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.

  • Njos2SQEZtPVRhH@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    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

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      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”.

  • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • archchan@lemmy.mlEnglish
      7·
      5 days ago

      Because the one in the US is working out so well for humanity right?

      Fuck Silicon Valleys. Use and support open standards and software.

  • emax_gomax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I thought gdpr forced companies to store data securely in the eu. Are they saying they’ll transfer that data to the us to give Trump access, cause that’s a gdpr violation and should result in fines and eventual removal from the eu market.

      • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        Listen, I’m extremely anti-trump but the guy has a point. Evil things can be evil regardless of who is in charge, but we only seem to care when the narrative shifts in certain directions. Why didn’t we care about this back then?

        • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
          01·
          6 days ago

          I haven’t used a Microsoft product in my personal life in twenty years. One of the primary reasons for that is that I don’t trust them with my privacy. People (gestures broadly at the tech space) have been expressing similar sentiment for decades.

          We are not a monolith, and some people have cared about these things while others have not.

          For those who only just began caring, I find it entirely reasonable that when the top of the pyramid wasn’t Trump, someone who there are a great many reasons to distrust, they weren’t as worried about it.

          If you didn’t care about it until recently, only you can answer the question you have asked.

          All of which is far more of an answer than the sheer whataboutism merited.

          • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            Oh I most certainly cared back then, just felt like nobody wanted to listen to me. Full Linux, grapheneos stack with no google play services, no Microsoft, nearly free of google (replacing gmail is going to be a monumental task, but it’s my last one).

            • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
              01·
              5 days ago

              I think my point is kinda that the whataboutism poster I blocked might have needed a reminder that the idea that “no one cared until it was Trump” is just another pro-Trump attempt to rewrite history, and untrue on the face of it, because it has never been difficult in the age of MS dominance to find knowledgeable people expressing these concerns.

              However, and going back to my original comment and my underlying frustration that I’ve entertained this whataboutism for this long, like all examples of whataboutism it’s nothing but a waste of time where we all circlejerk about how of course we all cared about it even before Trump while simultaneously failing to call out the original statement of “no one cared until Trump” as the obvious bullshit that it is, on top of being whataboutism.

              So now I get to walk away smugly congratulating myself for how thoroughly I’ve exposed the whataboutism and the bullshit, meanwhile all the time you and I spent thinking about and typing this could have been spent thinking up creative methods of civil disobedience, or otherwise doing something more valuable than impotently demonstrating what an inane point was made in the first place.

              So next time, I’m just stopping at Goodbye, and the downvoters can fuck themselves.

              Edit - typo or two corrected.

    • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      My assumption for many years now has been that the answer to any question involving MS giving access to your data is “yes.”