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- cross-posted to:
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Because they were ordered to by the government or face enormous fines and repercussions.
Preeeeetty big thing to leave out of the headline if you ask me.
So they complied with a fascist regime to avoid fines and repercussions… They still complied with a fascist regime. Pretty bit thing if you ask me.
As I said in another comment, it’s not Microsoft’s position to be the judge of who is and isn’t fascist. It’s their position to stay in business, and you don’t do that by disobeying the government.
Do you think Microsoft should have sacrificed the entire company instead of follow the law?
Doesn’t change the fact that they did it, though. Although “US govt forced MS to shut down prosecutor’s email” would indeed have been more accurate.
The question still remains to whether corporations should bow to tyrannical demands. I think they do so too eagerly and should fight it more. If they don’t, that’s a pretty clear sign to anyone that your data and email simply isn’t safe in their hands.
It does change that fact, because again - they’re forced to by law. There’s no wiggle room. Had they chosen to defy them and take them to court, Microsoft probably would have been forced to cease trading in the USA or something equally as company destroying.
Your data and email isn’t ever “safe” unless you’re hosting every single part of it yourself, and even then - if the government orders you to do something, you’ll fold like origami when faced with the alternative. Microsoft aren’t in the business of deciding who is and isn’t “tyrannical”. They are in the business of following legal orders and staying in business though.
It doesn’t matter that they’re forced by law. That just means no US company is safe. It still means you need to get your stuff out of there.
And yes, your data and email can be safe, because EU law requires your data to be safe. It is becoming impossible for international tech companies to obey both US and EU law, and if you want your stuff to be safe, you should choose one that obeys EU law.
Mind you, Microsoft is actually planning to do something about this; they’ve suggested (but not yet implemented, I think) separating their EU based servers into a separate daughter company under a European board. But until they actually implement that, your data isn’t safe.
And your data is even less safe with some other US tech companies which have a longer history of flaunting EU data protection rules in order to exploit your data.
You’re forgetting the fact that the government ordered MS to do this. Moving your data to the EU does nothing to prevent any EU government from ordering the same thing.
I’m currently in the long tedious process of replacing all my details for every website and service with an email address at a domain I actually own, before some AI bot at Google decides that some random shit violates their TOC and deletes my Gmail.
Make sure you use a domain registrar and server that’s in a suitable jurisdiction for you.
This is fucking dangerous. Total watershed event.
misleading title
The International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen.
The Hague-based court’s American staffers have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest.
Some nongovernmental organizations have stopped working with the ICC and the leaders of one won’t even reply to emails from court officials.
Those are just some of the hurdles facing court staff since U.S. President Donald Trump in February slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, according to interviews with current and former ICC officials, international lawyers and human rights advocates.
did Microsoft also freeze his bank accounts?
this is the title ☞ “President Donald Trump in February slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan”
This is a technology forum. If the article is relevant here at all, it’s because of Microsoft. A better argument could probably be made that the article shouldn’t be here.
The title is still misleading and should have been worded better. Also company complying with sanctions is not news. The only reason it’d be newsworthy is if Microsoft locked his account independently.
No, the fact that MS can and will be forced to shut down accounts of people Trump dislikes is newsworthy in itself, and warning for everybody to avoid entrusting US companies with your data or money. If they can do it to this guy, they can do it to anyone.
That’s not newsworthy because it’s nothing new or unexpected. “US companies obey US law” isn’t newsworthy.
It is relevant because Microsoft is shutting down people their accounts for prosecuting war crimes. This should be a wakeup call for people to stop using services by the Fascist American government.
stop using services by the Fascist American government.
Microsoft is not part of the US government.
Yet the US government has full control over it.
It has to comply with US laws, is what you mean.
And those laws currently serve to suppress the international rule of law, and to enable fascism.
Why would you possibly think this is no big deal, when you see the size of the deal right in front of you?
US companies are subservient to Trump and will hurt you when Trump demands that.
And here I am having to oversee our organisation moving to Windows 11. I would happily not do that but I cannot imagine trying to administer a network of Linux computed.
I’m not even sure what the Linux equivalent of Active Directory is. That’s the one I’m stumped by.
I don’t think there is one I think the only way to do that would be to wander around with a bunch of .iso files and install what is needed where. At that point I think I’d rather just deal with Microsoft.
People need to stop using M$.
I totally agree, and I just switched from Windows to Linux for my desktop, but this isn’t on Microsoft - it’s sanctions on the ICC by the fascist regime running the country where they (Microsoft) are based in support of the fascist regime destroying Gaza. (I know I’m probably over simplifying it, but that’s my take on the article)
It’s still preemptive compliance by Microsoft.
Trump loves this shit because if it blows up, he can just say “I never ordered this.”
I’ve used Linux since 2005.
Since M$ started adding spyware, I have tried to avoid it as much as possible. Proton has been amazing with getting games running.
Yeah, the EU has been building out alternatives to American cloud companies like Microsoft for a while now, and it’s coming in handy for some of them. I think France in particular are working on this and launched their own alternatives to Google Docs etc.
https://www.techspot.com/news/107225-france-germany-unveil-docs-collaborative-tool-rival-us.html
Hmm we may have for a long time considered alternatives to the American cloud and tools but we still are extremely reliant on it in all administrations in France. As I recall 70% of our online government services are on American clouds. We also are almost exclusively using Microsoft windows and office for the desktop workstations.
I’m pessimistic in the sense that Europe has tried to offer an European cloud before. It was a spectacular failure that just costs us a lot of money so that businesses here could just take the money and then pretend they couldn’t make it work.
We definitely had a real shot in Europe to be sovereign. We just missed it. It’s never too late but it’s so prohibitively expensive to switch out of Microsoft ecosystem that many governments entities will rather fork out money to Microsoft.
The city of Munich’s move to open source software across thousands of workstations was by all accounts a success on a technical level, which I’m sure could be replicated by most European administrations.
The problem was, of course, political. The incoming conservative admin needed to paint the outgoing center admin as incompetent, and to do their usual corruption of course. So they jumped on a specific department’s complaint about an issue with one piece of software to cancel and roll back the entire fucking project.
A few months later, Microsoft opened up their new European headquarters in Munich. By sheer coincidence I’m sure. And in no way related to the fact that they have an incentive in the billions to keep people convinced there is no workable alternative even decades later.
I think recent events are giving a lot of motivation for these kinds of initiatives that weren’t a huge concern in the past.
There’s likely going to be a bit of a scramble as we realise we can’t rely on America and their companies anymore.
I agree. Trump just said that everyone that uses the services of American companies needs to agree with Trump or face the real risk of losing all their data.
In the face of that, even a pricier European option will look appetizing.
Sure but this looks like Microsoft complying with sanctions. I was unaware sanctions were applied to the ICC, which is complete nonsense.
Now he’s got an excuse to get an actual good email, at least.
forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider
Whose CEO publicly stated that “Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses”. Oh, the irony.
Oh they tackled them. Then they held them down, shook out their lunch money, and made them do what every they tell them to do.
Defending human rights and condemning war crimes is now punishable.
so glad i installed mint. also user codeberg instead of gh people.
I’m on the other side of the world from Microsoft HQ, and I can still hear the shouting.
Because this was basically a one way decision that will now block them from a lot of future contracts with governments, organizations and companies.
My mans was using Hotmail?
Kind of appalling that the ICC isnt using self hosted email with proper E2EE. Or is this just his private email?
If you think you can set up mail infrastructure with on premise everything that is available to your not on premise workers safer than Microsoft, you will be spending a huge amount of money to do so.
It just turns out that the US has become a rogue state that alligns with the type of war criminals and dictators that the ICC wants to prosecute. I really don’t think anyone would have predicted this 10 to 15 years ago when this mail choice was made.
If you think you can set up mail infrastructure with on premise everything that is available to your not on premise workers safer than Microsoft, you will be spending a huge amount of money to do so.
Even if they prefer not to self-host, there are plenty of providers out there that are more trustworthy than Microsoft. In fact, I would say that a medium-sized established company that derives most of its revenue from providing email and related services is likely to secure them better than an oversized tech giant that just does email on the side—they have more incentive.
I would agree that right now there are more choices. I don’t entirely agree they’re inherently safer. Nor that this choice would have been available as a choice when the original decision was made. (At a time when the US was at the very least considered to be an ally to Europe)
Yes. But nobody gets fired for hiring Microsoft. (until now, I guess? XD) It’s really as simple as that.
Literally every university here has on prem, externally accessible email service that has basically 100% uptime and works perfectly fine with pgp and stuff.
But also Microsoft infrastructure is inherently insecure so thats a low bar to surpass.
If you think security of infrastructure has anything to do with PGP you’re misunderstanding what I mean. Self hosting mail for an organisation like the ICC would require multiple FTE’s. In the same vein that the current US administration is retaliating against them other rogue nations are constantly specifically targeting them. It’s already hard to deal with this without being specifically targeted and a couple times being targeted usually causes you to be compromised, dealing with it full time is almost impossible. Unless your team is monstrously big and securing your groupware is one of your core activities.
I’ve literally had jobs like this, and the idea that the average university that self hosts is more secure than Exchange Online is just plain wrong. I’m sure you can point to a couple of them that are safer of course, but they 'll be the exception.
It can’t have worse uptime.
Hotmail was discontinued 10 to 15 years ago. They had to have got on Hotmail awhile before that.
I really don’t think anyone would have predicted this 10 to 15 years ago when this mail choice was made.
the USA has been a war criminal country for at least a century now, maybe longer
Which is why I specifically phrased the part you didn’t quote in that specific way.
I like that the title of this post points out the least interesting part of the article, well done.
