[alfiejohn_]

This.

When the Patriot Act was passed, there were a lot of European companies who were very skeptical about DHS/NSA snooping on their data. Now we've got solid proof that it's happening.

Regardless of what the US does now, people have lost faith. They can interpret the definition of words in the law so that what they do (which seem immoral/illegal/wrong to us) is in fact legal.

What the US can't control is purchasing power. Companies outside of the US are looking inwards again. AWS/Rackspace clouds look great, but you're bending yourself and your customers over, and the NSA didn't even buy you dinner.

The US cloud is toast.

[fragsworth]

> The US cloud is toast.

It would be irresponsible to trust the cloud anywhere, really, for two reasons. First, you can't know if another government is compliant with U.S. surveillance. Second, you can't expect any other government to be honest about its own actions either.

[res0nat0r]

Actually Gartner would disagree. We are near the end of the Hype Cycle and enterprises who were once skeptical about the security and risks of the cloud have recently begun embracing it. They pretend this trend is set to continue in the fuTure. The current NSA talk might make some weary but the US cloud is in no way toast.

Sorry I don't have a link to the Gartner report about the current state of adoption I'm referencing.

[fragsworth]

The cloud isn't dead for end-user applications (e.g. entertainment, video, music, games) but it is completely destroyed for any B2B applications.

Enterprises that are providing services to customers will continue using cloud services for their customers, because they'll probably get the NSA shakedowns anyway.

If you are using cloud services for proprietary development, research, and general employee workflow (e.g. Office 365, Google Docs, Gmail, and similar services) then there's a good chance you're making a big mistake.

[yuhong]

If the data you are storing in them actually matters enough to care about the spying.