Defense Agency To Begin Moving Classified Data to Amazon's Secret Cloud After Protest

Defense Agency To Begin Moving Classified Data to Amazon's Secret Cloud After Protest ( nextgov.com )

submitted 2018-03-14T14:12 by GizaDog

9 comments

obvious_throwaway1 2018-03-14T14:29

So.. when the FBI/CIA/NSA get subpoena'd by congress for classified documents and the FBI/CIA/NSA either stonewall for years or just provide the document 100% redacted without any punishment.. what will happen when Congress subpoenas Amazon? Will Amazon actually produce the document like the FBI/CIA/NSA is supposed to, unredacted? Or will they redact the document they provide and actually be punished for contempt of Congress?

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chmod 2018-03-14T16:14

These are still US government servers on US government property. They are just running AWS.

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obvious_throwaway1 2018-03-14T16:21

Ok. Your point? If Congress subpoenas Amazon for AWS data, they are legally obligated to provide it regardless of if they are US Government servers or otherwise.

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TrevorLahey 2018-03-14T16:32

The bigger issue, IMO, pertains to security. No, I've not researched Amazon's "Secret Cloud" but I presume that means they're pitching it as secure/encrypted/whatever. Bullshit. IF the USG data owners trust that alone then they are guilty IMO of spillage . That is the problem I see here, that such trust might be encouraged or even approved. The ONLY way this will possibly not be spillage is if the data is encrypted by a proven-secure means before being placed on external servers. To-date I am not familiar with established precedent. That's why access-control is always added as an additional protective measure. Use of AWS dispenses with that protection.

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chmod 2018-03-14T16:24

You're not understanding. Amazon Web Services is a cloud software suite that the government will be running on it's own servers. No data is being sent to Amazon or any of Amazon's servers. There would be no "AWS data" that Amazon would have.

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obvious_throwaway1 2018-03-14T16:26

No, I understand just fine. It appears we appear to disagree with the level of invasiveness in all modern OS backdoors. I don't think any major software company doesn't have a full telemetry enabled backdoor for all data built in, whether they know it or not.

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chmod 2018-03-14T16:34

I agree there's likely telemetry but classified networks don't have access to the internet. There's no way for any telemetry to get back to Amazon. Same with Windows - which we already use. I'm sitting at my government computer and have access to the SIPRnet (Secret). Everything on there is run on Windows OS and Windows Sharepoint Services. There's no real difference between WSS and AWS. That's why Microsoft protested the award.

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obvious_throwaway1 2018-03-14T16:42

But there IS a difference - Windows wasn't the product of CIA funding through In-Q-Tel patents. AWS, and every other Bezos-owned project is.

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GizaDog 2018-03-14T14:33

The right questions! Who is watching who!?

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