[jonknee]

It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.

[CyberDildonics]

There is no sense in trying to bend all the middle men to our will. The problem is broadcasting anything in the clear. Being able to effectively encrypt data at the IP level is what really needs to happen.

[fastandfurryous]

Google and Apple are still subject to the same pressures applied by warrants, subpeonas and national security letters.

I'm not really sure what you mean by encryption, though. Apple's iMessage may be encrypted, but their key exchange can be MitM'd easily.

Realistically you wouldn't use a service that exists because of the profit motive or is in the US. It will continue to operate to drive a profit while working with the government to stay in business.

[chinathrow]

I heard a rumour that iMessage/Apple is trying to fight an NSL. Does anyone have more details?

[fastandfurryous]

Given that NSLs have a gag order, this is probably a PR stunt like the lawsuit against the government.

They have been complicit with PRISM since 2012 without a peep.

[toomuchtodo]

Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity?

Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.

[haroldp]

Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.

[us0r]

Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.

[chinathrow]

Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?

[us0r]

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-cia-partner...

[fnordfnordfnord]

That was the CIA.

[chinathrow]

The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.

[Zigurd]

Because there are several people on HN who think an illusion of privacy is good enough.

[giggles_giggles]

Why would they do it non-profit?

Google Fiber is this.

[toomuchtodo]

Google Fiber is for the last mile, consumer/business users.

I'm suggesting a non-profit organization or entity that is a holding company for dark fiber assets for tech companies, with a charter that specifically protects the privacy and integrity of the packets that travel over it.

If your packets run over AT&T, you clearly have lost. But if you control physical access, the only way the government is going to gain unlawful access is through someone who has integrated themselves into your org or through an illicit fiber tap. You've significantly reduced your attack surface.

EDIT: You could even go so far as to require different orgs to travel over physically diverse strands, thereby preventing any sort of multi-tenant shenanigans, with the cable being shared ownership.

[olympus]

They maybe could, but that probably wouldn't stop the NSA from gaining access through other means.

More importantly, they probably wouldn't. All those companies you previously listed have been identified in documents leaked by Edward Snowden as supporting the NSA with backdoors.