At the Digital Summit in Berlin, the chancellor touted AI’s potential — and gave U.S. cloud services a blank check.
  • boonhet@lemmy.zipEnglish
    9·
    9 hours ago

    Oh I get to post this again: Merz taking over from Scholz means the Germans have combined them into Schmerz.

  • Tess@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    30·
    1 day ago

    I don’t know what he considers “sovereign enough”, but it’s definitely not in line with the EU’s own framework.

    On jurisdiction:

    SOV-2 Legal & Jurisdictional Sovereignty (10%) asks which legal system governs the provider, how exposed it is to non-EU laws with cross-border reach (the framework names the US CLOUD Act and the Chinese Cybersecurity Law explicitly), and whether any channel exists for non-EU authorities to compel access.

    • Balinares@pawb.socialEnglish
      3·
      11 hours ago

      Actually a good question and sovereign has usually been taken to mean, owned and operated by a EU company on EU territory, yeah.

      So something like Thalès S3NS. https://www.s3ns.io/en/news/sovereign-cloud-launch-germany

      Which I’m guessing is what Merz is referring to. Tech stack provided by GCP, ownership and operations 100% Thalès. Rather than, you know, vanilla GCP as people in this thread appear to be assuming.

      • Tess@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        4 hours ago

        That would definitely be a step forward for the jurisdiction objective. But I don’t see how this would dramatically improve supply chain sovereignty and technology sovereignty.

        Google acts solely as a technology provider. S3NS secures and manages three dedicated, isolated data centers located in France. Google Cloud Updates are received in a quarantine zone, inspected, and only moved to production once validated by S3NS. Operations, customer support, and contracting are all handled by S3NS under French law.

        In this case you’re still dependent on Google to provide both the technology and the updates. Sure they can be inspected and only installed after inspection and validation, but it’s not like you have any alternatives in place. What if Google chooses (or is compelled) to no longer provide any updates?

        • Balinares@pawb.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Well, if you opt to define sovereignty as using solely tech made locally, that’s a valid view, but then you end up hitting a wall pretty damn fast because as it turns out it takes a lot of countries to make everything that goes into a computer. For PC CPUs alone, for instance, you have a choice of Intel or AMD, and neither are European companies. For OSes, there is no 100% EU Linux distro. Even SLES is made of software developed all over the world. So basically, no matter what, you have to draw the line somewhere and that line will involve compromises. Not even China is 100% sovereign, by the above definition.

          And, y’know. That’s a good thing, in my book. Better a world where we all need each other. Then autocrats who figure they can totally fly solo soon discover otherwise. Their economy does, anyway.

          Regarding GCP updates, yup, under one setup I’ve seen, those are first deployed to a quarantine environment also under the control of a EU entity, and only that entity has the means to allow them into actual prod once validated. And as to withholding updates, ventures like S3NS happen under monster contracts, the breaching of which would incur eye-watering penalties. Ultimately GCP is a business that exists to make money. Eye-watering penalties get in the way of that.

          • Jeena@piefed.jeena.netEnglish
            1·
            2 hours ago

            I mean open source would at least make it possible for you to keep going for a bit when google cuts you off, you can then implement patches in your forks.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    601·
    1 day ago

    Absolutely moronic to consider Google independent of USA!
    Google operates under American laws, and as such they cannot be trusted, because American law is VERY incompatible with European regulations in several areas.
    For Christ sake Germany, get your shit together already!!!

  • endofline@lemmy.caEnglish
    20·
    1 day ago

    Doesn’t schwarz group offer cloud hosting ( back bone of Lidl afaik )? I heard something like this to mu surprise

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      14 hours ago

      Merz has struck his teeth into the idea that foreign investment (aka selling out) is the only way to save the country and he won‘t let go of it. All the while he actively pushes for higher unemployment rates with his policies. I think Germany will see a stark rise of anti data center and AI protests soon.

    • Waterpumpee@lemmus.orgEnglish
      20·
      1 day ago

      There are plenty. But they didn’t bribe as much. Can’t tell me he doesn’t know he’s voted out no matter what he does now. He tries to secure his own economic future now i guess.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    If you don’t see real usage of foreign capacity decreasing, it’s all bullshit to calm people’s fears down. And they’re very good at marketing bullshit.