1nc – cloud computing
NSA surveillance doesn’t undermine cloud computing
Henderson, 4/9/15 (Nicole, “Impact of NSA Surveillance on US Cloud Providers Not as Bad as
We Thought: Forrester” 4/9, http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/impact-nsasurveillance-us-cloud-providers-not-bad-thought-forrester
It’s been two years since Edward Snowden leaked details of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance
program, and although analysts predicted an exodus from US-based cloud and hosting services
in response to the revelations, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way, a new report finds.
Forrester released a new report last week that suggests concerns around international
customers severing ties with US-based hosting and cloud companies “were overblown.”
“Lost revenue from spending on cloud services and platforms comes to just over $500 million
between 2014 and 2016. While significant, these impacts are far less than speculated, as more
companies reported taking control of security and encryption instead of walking away from
US providers,” Forrester’s principal analyst serving security and risk professionals Edward
Ferrara said in a blog post.
Snowden recently told a crowd of cloud and hosting providers that use of encryption is growing,
and encrypted traffic has doubled since 2013.
In 2013, Forrester predicted that US cloud providers cloud lose up to $180 billion in business by
2016 due to concerns around the scope of NSA’s PRISM program.
According to NextGov, Forrester finds that 26 percent of enterprises based in Asia Pacific,
Canada, Europe and Latin America have stopped or reduced their spending with US-based firms
for Internet-based services. Thirty-four percent said these concerns were related to fears of US
surveillance, while others said they want to support businesses in their own country, or data
sovereignty rules prevent them from storing data abroad.
Forrester surveyed more than 3,000 businesses between June and July 2014.
More than half of respondents said that they did not trust US-based outsourcers to handle
sensitive information, with only 8 percent reporting to trust their company’s intellectual
property with a US-based outsourced company.
Ninety-percent of decision-makers have taken steps to encrypt their data, according to the
report.
Cloud computing not feasible – security hurdles
Xiao and Chen 15 – *professor at the Department of Software Engineering at
Hainan Software Profession Institute AND **Assistant Professor in Operations
Management at New York University, PhD (Ziqian and Jingyou, Cloud
Computing Security Issues and Countermeasures, Proceedings of the 4th
International Conference on Computer Engineering and Networks p. 731-737,
2015, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-11104-9_85)//JJ
Cloud Computing Security Challenges
New Risks Brought by Virtual Technologies
Virtualization brings new risks mainly in the virtual machine being abused , the virtual
machine escape , and multi-tenant isolation between the failures of security policy migration
of virtual machines.
Shared Data Security Environment
Under the cloud service model, users are very worried about whether the data stored in the
service provider will be compromised , tampered , or lost . Man-made threats facing the user
data mainly come from service providers , hackers , malicious neighboring tenants , and
subsequent tenants.
Cloud Platform Application Security
There are some application security problems existing in Cloud Computing Services, no matter
Saas, Paas or Iaas, mainly including three categories. The first one is the malicious program
review . The second one is the application interface security . The third one is code and test
safety .
Authentication and Access Control in the Cloud Service Model
Under the cloud service model, user authentication and access control face new challenges, for
example, the authentication and authorization of massive users, the rational division of access
rights, and the management of accounts, passwords, and keys. In dealing with massive users’
changeable business and their identification, the cloud service providers need to fully automate
users’ authentication and access management.
Cloud computing improvements now – new tech and legal measures
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
High-security demanding customers such as government agencies and
corporate and organizational users with particularly strict demands for
information security are likely to drive these market responses.214 Customers
will insist upon better guarantees of security and confidentiality and may refuse
to do business with popular, U.S.-based cloud services subject to far-reaching
government surveillance powers. Indeed, they may be barred from doing so
under new proposals in Europe and elsewhere requiring their citizens to rely on
local cloud services.215 In the market for individual users of cloud resources,
there may generally be an increasing demand for better security and privacy
safeguards as a result of the widely discussed examples of mass surveillance of
online interactions and communication. In addition, law and regulation may
increasingly require that certain types of disproportionate lawful access to
cloud data be excluded if cloud providers want unrestricted access to the
market.
Are these measures likely to be effective against intelligence agencies with the
skills and resources of NSA or GCHQ? The answer depends on a variety of
factors, which will be discussed further in this Section. One thing is clear: the
range of technical solutions described in Part III is not binary, and recent
announcements of ‘NSA-proof’ services seem highly oversimplified.
A better way of framing this topic is to ask a series of more nuanced questions
as follows: First, can technological and organizational design of services help to
protect against backdoor access of data in the cloud? Second, and related, can the
cloud industry help to prevent bulk and dragnet access to the data of their customers? Third,
to what extent can the technical and organizational design of cloud services
help to shape lawful access dynamics, such as where and how lawful access
takes place (i.e., which entity and in which geographical location)? And, finally, to
what extent can government agencies armed with surveillance orders counter the design
choices of industry players when new technologies undermine lawful access to data in the cloud
the government is seeking?
Based on the analysis outlined herein, the first question should be answered
positively. As cloud services roll out new security and encryption measures with the
goal of preventing bulk data collection by surreptitious means, this will
undoubtedly interfere with large scale intelligence gathering, such as the
interception of client-server and server-server data streams . Firms like Google,
Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook have already begun to implement wellestablished techniques such as TLS/SSL and perfect forward secrecy, just as various
security organizations have begun to review how they develop cryptographic
standards.216 At the end of the day, the protection against backdoor access is
also a matter of resources, however. Certain technological solutions may
prevent effective bulk collection through specific intelligence programs, but
intelligence agencies could in turn deploy targeted intelligence operations to
undo some of these protections implemented by cloud services.
The second question, which concerns the possibility of cloud firms preventing
dragnet surveillance, cannot generally be answered affirmatively. Technological
design may have some impact on front-door collection but where surveillance
regimes like Section 702 of the FAA authorize large scale transnational
surveillance directed at cloud services, industry has limited options. It may
oppose orders in court, or it may take a public stance to the effect that certain
types of lawful access should not be legally permissible under current statutes
and strive for legal reforms that would enhance the privacy interests of cloud
customers.218
The third question must be answered positively also, at least in theory.
Technological and organizational design of services can help to shape lawful
access dynamics and could be used precisely to do so. While few cloud services
have actively implemented privacy-preserving encryption protocols, there is
reason to believe that this is changing . As discussed in the previous section, both
the cloud industry and the Internet security engineering community have taken
the first steps towards implementing technical and organizational measures to shape
the lawful access dynamics induced by the use of their services and further
innovations may be anticipated. The extent to which local jurisdictions may
force multinational cloud service providers to comply with domestic laws
notwithstanding these new security measures remains a particularly hotly
debated issue.
2nc – surveillance not hurt cloud
No significant impact on cloud computing
Weise, 4/7/15 (Elizabeth, “PRISM revelations didn't hit U.S. cloud computing as hard as
expected” 4/7, http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/04/07/prism-revelations-didnt-hitu-s-cloud-computing-as-hard-as-expected/
When Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM spying
program, there were concerns that American cloud, hosting and outsourcing businesses would
lose customers running to non-U.S.-based companies safe from NSA’s prying eyes.
“The assertion was that this would be a death blow to U.S. firms trying to operating in Europe
and Asia,” said Forrester Research analyst Ed Ferrara.
But two recent reports from Forrester find it was less catastrophic than expected.
That’s good news for companies like Box (BOX), DropBox and others that make their money by
selling U.S.-based data storage.
Forrester had originally predicted U.S. companies could lose as much as $180 billion in sales.
Instead, just 29% of technology decision-makers in Asia, Canada, Europe and Latin America
halted or reduced spending with U.S.-based firms offering Internet-based services due to the
PRISM scandal, Forrester’s Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey for 2014 found
“It’s a relatively small amount of data,” Ferrara said.
That’s because most of the companies didn’t need to move all their data, much of which was
stored in-house. Instead, only 33% of the data held by that 29% of companies was at a thirdparty data center or in a cloud system.
Forrester believes the overall loss to U.S. cloud providers for 2015 will be about $15 billion and
in 2016, $12 billion, a far cry from projections that were ten times that a year ago.
Forrester also found that companies are looking at other ways to protect the integrity of their
data, not just from the NSA but also from surveillance by other nations.
Chief among them was encryption. Eighty-four percent of the companies said they’re using
various encryption methods to protect sensitive material.
The survey’s definition of cloud providers is broad, and includes both platform as a service,
infrastructure as a service and software as a service companies, said Ferrara.
2nc - cloud not feasible
Tons of alt. causes to cloud computing –
Castro and McQuinn 15 – * Vice President of the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation and Director of the Center for Data Innovation, B.S. in
Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an M.S. in Information
Security Technology and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, AND
** Research Assistant with the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation, B.S. in Public Relations and Political Communications from the
University of Texas (Daniel and Alan, Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S.
Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness, Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation, June 2015, http://www2.itif.org/2015-beyond-usa-freedomact.pdf?_ga=1.33178294.940386433.1435342104)//JJ
In the short term, U.S. companies lose out on contracts, and over the long term,
other countries create protectionist policies that lock U.S. businesses out of
foreign markets. This not only hurt s U.S. technology companies, but costs
American jobs and weakens the U.S. trade balance. To reverse this trend, ITIF
surveillance activities both at home an
security by opposing any government efforts to introduce backdoors in software or
Strengthen U.S. mutual legal assistance treaties
Work to establish international legal standards for gover
Complete trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership that ban digital
protectionism, and pressure nations that seek to erect protectionist barriers to
abandon those efforts .
Cloud computing not feasible – security hurdles
Xiao and Chen 15 – *professor at the Department of Software Engineering at
Hainan Software Profession Institute AND **Assistant Professor in Operations
Management at New York University, PhD (Ziqian and Jingyou, Cloud
Computing Security Issues and Countermeasures, Proceedings of the 4th
International Conference on Computer Engineering and Networks p. 731-737,
2015, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-11104-9_85)//JJ
Cloud Computing Security Challenges
New Risks Brought by Virtual Technologies
Virtualization brings new risks mainly in the virtual machine being abused , the virtual
machine escape , and multi-tenant isolation between the failures of security policy migration
of virtual machines.
Shared Data Security Environment
Under the cloud service model, users are very worried about whether the data stored in the
service provider will be compromised , tampered , or lost . Man-made threats facing the user
data mainly come from service providers , hackers , malicious neighboring tenants , and
subsequent tenants.
Cloud Platform Application Security
There are some application security problems existing in Cloud Computing Services, no matter
Saas, Paas or Iaas, mainly including three categories. The first one is the malicious program
review . The second one is the application interface security . The third one is code and test
safety .
Authentication and Access Control in the Cloud Service Model
Under the cloud service model, user authentication and access control face new challenges, for
example, the authentication and authorization of massive users, the rational division of access
rights, and the management of accounts, passwords, and keys. In dealing with massive users’
changeable business and their identification, the cloud service providers need to fully automate
users’ authentication and access management.
2nc – Squo solves
New protection standards and tech solve
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
V. CONCLUSION
This Article describes and places in a legal perspective the cloud industry’s
technological responses to the revelations about ongoing transnational
surveillance. By focusing on industry responses and exploring the ways in which
the technological design of cloud services could further address surveillance
concerns, we provide insights into the prospects of these services shaping
lawful government access to the cloud. This intersection of service design, on
the one hand, and government demands for access to data, on the other hand,
signals a dynamic new chapter in the ongoing debate between industry and
governments about the possibility and conditions of secure and privacy-friendly
information and communications technologies (ICTs) for global markets.
In particular, we have shown that it is helpful to distinguish between front-door
and backdoor access to data in the cloud. Our analysis of industry responses
has shown the cloud industry is moving quickly to address interception of their
customers’ data without their knowledge or involvement by adopting
technological solutions that limit lawful access (as far as possible) to legal
processes directed at the cloud service itself and/or its customers. Many of
these measures could have been implemented much earlier on. They are now
becoming industry norms . Industry standards like SSL/TLS and HTTPS, together
with a new generation of PETs offering “end-to-end” protection, can be
effective tools in preventing bulk acquisition through the targeting of the
worldwide communications infrastructure.
In short, technologies can help the industry shape lawful access even though
they do not change the legal framework, nor do they overcome the lack of progress in
reforming existing legal authorities ( such as Section 702 of the FAA ) to confine lawful
access to the front-door of service providers. We expect that this lack of
progress—with respect to transnational legal guarantees of privacy and
information security, not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere—will be a strong
driver for the wider adoption of more robust and comprehensive privacy
technologies in the cloud service context. And we argue that under current
conditions, the U.S. cloud industry will increasingly rely on technologies to
‘regulate’ government data access in an effort to enhance the privacy and
information security protections of their foreign customers.
This raises the pertinent question of how the U.S. government may respond to
increased resilience of cloud services against lawful surveillance. While FISA
and ECPA allow government agencies to obtain orders that ensure the
cooperation of providers notwithstanding strong technological protections,
existing law does not allow for unlimited bargaining room. Most of the services
in question are not subject to CALEA obligations and an extension of CALEA
seems neither warranted nor politically feasible under present conditions.
Moreover, most of these services have responded to the Snowden revelations
by implementing stronger privacy protections (and even some advanced
cryptographic protocols). No doubt they await the outcome of the ongoing
litigation in the Lavabit case, which may clarify the government’s power to
compel a service to break its security model in response to a valid surveillance
order. However, the Lavabit case does not yet present a scenario in which a
service’s use of advanced cryptography makes it impossible to comply with a
surveillance order by furnishing unencrypted data. 2014] PRIVACY AND
SECURITY IN THE CLOUD 533 A U.S. government win in the Lavabit case may
therefore be little more than a pyrrhic victory, for it could simply further
incentivize industry to adopt even stronger technological solutions against
surveillance, including both actively implemented and client-side encryption
protocols preserving privacy in the cloud .
Encryption solves – major companies prove
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
It is hardly surprising, then, that cloud firms like Microsoft have started taking steps to ensure
that governments use legal process rather than “technological brute force to access customer
data.” engineering effort to strengthen the encryption of customer data across [its] networks
and services.”159 This matches similar activity of Google, which had started to encrypt data
more comprehensively even before the specific revelations about the MUSCULAR program.160
As a Google security engineer explained shortly after these revelations, “the traffic shown in the
[MUSCULAR] slides below is now all encrypted and the work the NSA/GCHQ (U.K. Government
Communications Headquarters) staff did on understanding it, ruined .”161 Finally, Yahoo has
announced it will “[e]ncrypt all information that moves between [its] data centers by the end of
Q1 2014.” The encryption measures discussed above could help the cloud industry to
counteract programs like MUSCULAR and UPSTREAM, which rely on the bulk collection of data
by targeting communication links and the telecommunications infrastructure. Of course, this
assumes that the NSA does not seek to undermine these protections by relying on security
weaknesses in the implementation or use of SSL or the underlying encryption 158 Microsoft
recently announced “a comprehensive algorithms.
2nc – at: https encryption
HTTPS encryption protocols fail –
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
In terms of securing web-based communications, however, the HTTPS system is no panacea
against government surveillance. First, the protocol must be properly implemented .147
Second, there are known attacks on the use of encrypted web communications through
SSL.148 Third, intelligence agencies may work around the protections and attempt to secretly
install software on the computers of targeted users, thereby allowing them to capture their
communications before they are transmitted across an encrypted connection.149 Finally, and
most importantly, HTTPS is not designed to protect data at rest . Even if a cloud provider
properly implements this protocol, this does nothing to prevent a government agency from
obtaining the data it seeks by means of a compulsory order requiring the service provider to
furnish this data. Indeed, as Professor Peter Swire argues, the trend towards encrypting data in
transit between users and cloud services may well result in governments shifting their attention
from attacking the communication infrastructure to demanding that cloud service providers
hand over stored data after it has been securely transmitted.150 The Snowden revelations
already provide some evidence of this shift and the measures detailed in this Section could
accelerate this trend. To counter this trend, governments confronted with encrypted
communication channels could try to compel cloud providers to hand over their encryption
keys, enabling the continued effective interception over telecommunications infrastructure (an
option discussed further in Part IV).
2nc – at: pets
PETs fail – not technologically or economically feasible
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
It is important to emphasize that adoption of the solutions discussed remains
low even though some of them are ready for use. There are a number of
reasons for this. First, some of these solutions, such as FHE, are at the very early
stages of development.188 If service provision is limited to the mere storage of
data in the cloud, it may be technically feasible for the service provider to
anticipate and organize for encryption under the control of cloud users.
However, if the cloud provider also has to perform processing operations on
the encrypted data stored by its customers, the implementation of privacypreserving PETs in the cloud context is far more challenging and may even be
impossible for complex operations. 189
Second, many cloud providers lack the incentive to adopt and further develop
PETs based on advanced cryptographic solutions that would prevent them from
having access to user data. The reasons are obvious: many business models in
the cloud industry depend on generating revenue based on access to
customers’ data (e.g., profiling users for purposes of serving them targeted
ads).190 Thus, for many cloud service providers, the costs of implementing these
PETs (loss of profits) outweigh the potential benefits (improved security and privacy
guarantees for their customers).191 Arguably, the new emphasis on security
and privacy in the cloud in response to the Snowden revelations might
incentivize industry to consider developing and adopting similar measures.
Notwithstanding the current lack of adoption, the point this Article seeks to
emphasize is that if service providers were to deploy such measures, it would
interfere with lawful access requests to cloud providers in some obvious ways. For
example, a provider might simply be unable to share unencrypted customer
data with law enforcement or intelligence agencies notwithstanding a lawful
request for such access.192
Too many hurdles to client-side PETs – their ev. is theoretical
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
What happens if the government serves a lawful request for the content of
communications on a service provider whose customers utilize a client-side PET
for encrypted email or chat? At best, the service providers may hand over
encrypted data but these PETs prevent it from furnishing unencrypted data. On
the other hand, the provider may fully comply with requests for traffic data
unless the user combines a client-side PET with a collaborative PET like Tor.197
Cloud providers’ attitudes to these client-side PETs are likely to remain
ambivalent. On the one hand, they may decide to block their use because they
interfere with their business model and desired uses of the service ;198 on the
other hand, they may embrace PETs as proof of their good faith efforts to
ensure customer privacy in the cloud. By pointing out the possibility to adopt
end-to-end encryption solutions, companies could reassure users who are
rightly worried about the surveillance of their communications.199
Although the availability of encryption solutions may seem attractive for users,
they come with some well-documented downsides in terms of usability .200 As a
result, only dedicated or expert users tend to take advantage of them. In fact
this is another oft-cited reason for industry to shy away from promoting client-side
encryption solutions. In addition, the client-side approach to security tends to
rely on the free or open source software model, in which developers release
their source code, thereby allowing the security community to review the code
and determine that the software is indeed secure. From an ordinary user’s
perspective, this substitutes trust in a group of security experts in lieu of trusting
the third-party services. Finally, it is true that the implementation of end-to-end
encryption may help to protect against third party access to raw data through
the service provider. From the perspective of managing information security
more generally, however, many organizations and individuals may prefer
trusting a dedicated service provider over having to rely on their own expertise.
Of course, the Snowden revelations may boost the adoption of end-to-end
encryption as a way of limiting the widely publicized systematic monitoring of
global Internet communications. Certainly, the NSA’s targeting of major cloud service
providers through programs like PRISM has spiked interest in end-to-end encryption solutions,
at least according to all the hoopla in the popular press .201 For the moment, however,
there seems to be only a small niche market for services that cater to the demand
for properly implemented end-to-end security, as evidenced by services such as
Lavabit,202 Hushmail,203 Silent Circle,204 and Heml.is.205
2nc – at: hushmail/lavabit
Our ev accounts for Hushmail and Lavabit – s-quo progression of corporate
encryption solves
Rubinstein and Hoboken 14 – *Senior Fellow at the Information Law Institute
(ILI) and NYU School of Law, AND **Microsoft Research Fellow in the
Information Law Institute at New York University, PhD from the University of
Amsterdam (Ira and Joris Van, PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN THE CLOUD: SOME
REALISM ABOUT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO TRANSNATIONAL SURVEILLANCE IN
THE POST- SNOWDEN ERA, 66 Maine L. Rev. 488, September 2014,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2443604)//JJ
This may (or may not) be an accurate description of what happened in the
Hushmail case.273 Hushmail secure email service offers its customers two
options: a high-security option, which requires that users install and run a Javabased encryption applet and encrypts and decrypts email only on the
customer’s computer; and a low-security (non-Java) option, which is more
convenient but less secure because it handles encryption and decryption on
Hushmail’s web server.274 As a result, Hushmail retains the ability to decrypt
user’s emails when they select the low-security option (via an “insider attack”
like that against Lavabit) but no ability to do so when the customer selects the
high-security option.275 Of course, Hushmail’s design does not prevent the
company from modifying the Java applet so that it captures the user’s
passphrase and sends it to Hushmail, thereby enabling the company to decrypt
the email and share it with a third-party including the government. But it seems
unlikely that the company would destroy its own business by subverting its
software in this way and subject itself to a likely deceptive practice
enforcement action under Section 5 of the FTC Act.276 Unlike Lavabit, none of
the sealed documents in the Hushmail case have been leaked, so less
information is available. Also, it is not clear whether the 2007 court order
pertained to a high-security or a low-security user; or if Hushmail modified its
Java encryption engine; or if, in the interests of full disclosure, it merely pointed
out the possibility of doing so.277 In short, the Hushmail case exemplifies the
dilemmas that the government may begin to face if service providers take the
next logical step of adding government agencies to their threat models and
designing systems that protect against valid court orders. And while the
government has prevailed in its efforts to force niche players like Lavabit and Hushmail to
capitulate, it may face a much greater challenge if major Internet firms like Microsoft, Google,
and Facebook go down this path in response to the Snowden revelations.
AT: Space debris impact
Status quo solves space debris- NASA and NOAA prove
Haar and Leslie 14, Audrey Haar works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and John
Lesilie works at the NOAA Office of Communications and External Affairs, (10/22/14, NASANOAA Suomi NPP Satellite Team Ward Off Recent Space Debris Threat,
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-noaa-suomi-npp-satellite-team-ward-off-recentspace-debris-threat)//AK
While space debris was the uncontrolled adversary in the award-winning space thriller film
"Gravity," space debris, also known as "space junk," is an ongoing real-life concern for teams
managing satellites orbiting Earth, including NOAA-NASA's Suomi National Polar-orbiting
Partnership, or Suomi NPP, satellite. It is not unusual for satellites that have the capability of
maneuvering to be repositioned to avoid debris or to maintain the proper orbit.
On an otherwise quiet Sunday on September 28, the Suomi NPP mission team was monitoring a
possible close approach of a debris object. By early evening, the risk was assessed to be high
enough to start planning a spacecraft maneuver to put the satellite into a safer zone, out of the
path of the object classified in a size range of 4 inches up to 3.3 feet.
It was determined that the object (travelling at almost 17,000 mph) was approaching at a nearly
"head on" angle, and could potentially only miss the Suomi NPP satellite by approximately 300
feet on Tuesday, September 30, if no action was taken. With that knowledge, the decision was
made at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, September 29, for NOAA's Satellite Operations Facility, or NSOF,
in Suitland, Maryland, to reposition Suomi NPP. Operational control as well as planning and
execution of all Suomi NPP maneuvers take place at NSOF.
"Because Suomi NPP moves at a similar speed as the debris object, if there had been an impact,
it would have occurred at a combined speed of nearly 35,000 mph. This would have been
catastrophic not only to the satellite, but would result in thousands of pieces of new debris,"
said Harry Solomon, Mission Manager for Suomi NPP at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Space around Earth is littered with numerous man-made objects that could potentially collide
with operating spacecraft and each other (creating more debris). There are more than 20,000
objects being monitored by the U.S. Department of Defense for satellite managers around the
world.
Only about 1,000 of those 20,000 objects are operating spacecraft. The rest of the monitored
space debris ranges in size from the size of a softball, to massive rocket bodies, all orbiting
uncontrolled at relative speeds averaging about 22,300 mph in low-Earth orbit, where the
majority of the objects reside.
Yet it is the unknown, often smaller, untracked objects that pose the biggest threat. "If a
spacecraft is lost due to being hit by debris, the odds are the satellite will be hit by something
the trackers can't see," said Nicholas Johnson, NASA chief scientist (retired) for orbital debris at
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
That is exactly the scenario Solomon and his counterpart, Martin England, mission operations
engineering lead at NSOF hope will never happen.
Risk Team Monitors Unmanned Missions Threats for NOAA and NASA
While NASA's Johnson Space Center manages monitored debris threats for spacecraft related to
U.S. manned missions such as the International Space Station, the responsibility for unmanned
missions managed by NASA falls to the Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis, or CARA, team
operating out of NASA Goddard.
About seven days before a potential threat, information from the Department of Defense is
analyzed by the CARA team to evaluate predicted close approaches. CARA monitors and
provides updated information about potential threats to satellite mission managers who then
make a decision about the need to reposition their satellites in a procedure known as a Risk
Mitigation Maneuver.
Since Suomi NPP's launch in October 2011, this recent reposition was the fourth Risk Mitigation
Maneuver to avoid space debris. In this case, the object was a section of a Thorad-Agena launch
vehicle used between 1966 and1972 primarily for Corona U.S. reconnaisssance satellites.
A previous Suomi NPP risk mitigation maneuver in January 2014 avoided a discarded booster
from a Delta 1 launch vehicle, a type of rocket made in the United States for a variety of space
missions from 1960 to 1990. There is also a significant amount of debris in Suomi NPP's orbit
from the Chinese Fengyun-1C, a meteorological satellite China destroyed in January 2007 in a
test of an anti-satellite missile. Another threat near Suomi NPP's orbit is the debris resulting
from a 2009 collision of a functioning commercial communications satellite and a defunct
Russian satellite.
Suomi NPP's job is to collect environmental observations of atmosphere, ocean and land for
both NOAA's weather and oceanography operational missions and NASA's research mission to
continue the long-term climate record to better understand the Earth's climate and long-term
trends.
To accomplish those goals, the satellite maintains a position on orbit such that the desired
path across the ground does not vary by more than 20 km (12 miles) on each side. This orbit is
adjusted with regular planned maneuvers to maintain the proper orbit and angles for best
information collection. But if a Risk Mitigation Maneuver to avoid space debris were to
necessitate moving out of that desired collection zone, then yet another maneuver would be
necessary to return to the optimum orbit position. These unplanned maneuvers tap into the
finite amount of fuel on satellites and could potentially shorten mission life of a spacecraft if
fuel is used more quickly than anticipated.
The amount of space debris is not constant. It generally increases every year, sometimes
generated from debris collisions, which can potentially create additional debris fragments. But
there are also debris reductions. One tracked object generally falls back to Earth daily,
sometimes burning up to nothing upon re-entry, or falling into water or the large areas of low
population density.
In addition, there are also natural events that help control debris. The sun is currently going
through a period known as solar maximum, the term for a high period of solar activity. The
increased number of sunspots and solar storms during solar maximum takes place
approximately every 11 years. During this period, the extent of Earth's atmosphere increases
due to solar heat generated by the increased amount of solar activity. As the atmosphere
extends to higher altitudes, debris at these altitudes are then subjected to increased friction,
known as drag, and as a result, space debris typically fall to Earth at a higher rate during solar
maximum.
The Suomi NPP mission is a bridge between NOAA and NASA legacy Earth observing missions
and NOAA's next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS. The next satellite, JPSS-1, is
targeted for launch in early 2017.
Status quo mechanisms being strengthened now to solves space debris threats
Bonard 14, expert on the ISS and a space analyst, (Michael, 11/10/14,
Commentary | Space Debris Mitigation: A New Hope for a Realistic Solution?,
http://spacenews.com/42511space-debris-mitigation-a-new-hope-for-arealistic-solution/)//AK
On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese antisatellite missile test completely fragmented a Chinese target
satellite into millions of pieces of debris — nearly 800 debris fragments 10 centimeters or
larger, nearly 40,000 debris fragments between 1 and 10 centimeters, and some 2 million
fragments of 1 millimeter or larger.
On Feb. 10, 2009, the operational Iridium 33 and decommissioned Kosmos-2251 satellites
collided at a speed of 42,120 kilometers per hour, destroying both satellites. In July 2011, more
than 2,000 large debris fragments resulting from this collision were detected.
The international space station is routinely dodging debris that are tracked by ground-based
radars.
Space debris constitutes a continuously growing threat to satellites and manned spacecraft.
Very small debris creates potentially nonthreatening damage. Large debris can be detected by
ground-based radars and avoided by spacecraft maneuvers. However, small- to medium-sized
debris in low or medium Earth orbits constitutes the biggest threat. These orbits have the
largest density of debris and the highest relative speeds, while the atmospheric drag is small
enough that it may take centuries to have the debris re-enter the atmosphere.
In 1978, NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler showed that if the density of space debris in low Earth
orbit is high enough, each collision generating space debris would increase the likelihood of
further collisions. One serious implication is that the multiplication of debris in orbit will render
space exploration, and even the use of satellites, increasingly dangerous and costly for many
generations.
Multiple solutions to remove space debris have been explored and published.
One of these solutions involves physical contact between debris and the spacecraft:
Shielding of in-orbit spacecraft has been considered. However, the satellite community has
recognized that the sheer weight of any reasonably efficient shielding would make launch not
economically viable. Furthermore, the speeds involved in physical contacts would generate a
cloud of additional debris.
“Catcher” spacecraft have also been proposed. Conceptually, highly mobile and agile spacecraft
equipped with a “catching device” like a net or a robotic arm could be launched from Earth to
intercept and catch debris. However, unless the catcher spacecraft are able to precisely match
the speed and direction of the debris, any high-speed physical contact between a component of
the catcher spacecraft and space debris will result in a collision, multiplying the debris. The cost
of designing, developing, testing and launching such a spacecraft, with sufficient fuel onboard to
repeatedly intercept multiple debris fragments at different speeds, orbits and altitudes, does
not seem to be economically viable.
Other solutions would use high-power lasers that could vaporize the surface of the debris in
space, deflecting it and possibly changing its orbit to intersect the atmosphere. These solutions
have the advantage of not requiring physical contact with the debris.
Space-based laser systems require designing, building, launching and operating a spacecraft
equipped with a very high-power laser system. Such a design is utterly complex and expensive
and very likely will not be economically viable.
Airborne laser systems are facing the same obstacles: The Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Test Bed
program, which was designed as a missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles,
was terminated because of cost.
Ground-based laser systems are handicapped by the very long propagation distance,
atmospheric absorption and distortion of the laser beam. Such parameters make this solution
also not economically viable. Furthermore, being located in a single country, a ground-based
laser system would raise serious political issues within the international community because of
its implied antisatellite capability.
In summary, the cost/benefit ratio of the above solutions appears to be the main reason none
has been implemented to date to proactively mitigate the most dangerous debris.
A more affordable approach for cleaning low and medium Earth orbits of small- to mediumsized orbital debris may be achievable. This approach would use the principle of deflecting an
electrically charged, moving object in a magnetic field. The old television tube is probably the
most common example of this principle, where electrical charges (electrons) are deflected by
the magnetic fields generated by the tube deflection coils.
The application of this principle would use a space-based electron gun to generate an electron
beam directed at the orbital debris. The beam would remotely impart an electric charge to the
debris. Earth’s magnetic field would exert a force on the electric charge of such debris crossing
the magnetic field at high speed, modifying its orbit. Over time, the orbit would become highly
elliptical and would intersect the upper atmosphere, where the debris would vaporize or fall to
Earth. Preliminary calculations have shown that this concept is sound. The benefits include:
Cost: Lower cost is the major advantage of electromagnetic deflection.
Feasibility: There is no new or speculative technology to develop. Used in particle accelerators
and in millions of old-style television tubes, the electron gun technology is very mature. The
energy used to generate the electron beam is orders of magnitude lower than high-power
lasers.
Risk: It would reduce the probability of creating additional debris by avoiding any physical
contact.
The electron gun device could be integrated in an add-on module to the international space
station.
The ISS is already in space, and there would be no new spacecraft to develop and launch.
The ISS has a large power-generation capability, while the electron gun would require only
intermittent and modest amounts of energy to operate.
This solution would be more easily adopted by the international space community, since it does
not have the capability to damage or destroy a spacecraft. This feature would be expected to
encourage support and funding of the project by all the nations involved in space operations.
The electromagnetic deflection concept would best be implemented as an international
program, managed and coordinated by the space agencies of several countries.
As with any new technology development, there are still open questions associated with the
deployment of this concept. A formal study would have to be conducted by space specialists to
validate and test the concept and determine the optimum design parameters.
Areas that should be explored include:
The ability to precisely direct the electron beam at the debris. Although electrons can be sent at
near-light speed, they are also deflected by the very magnetic field that will act on the debris,
requiring precise aiming of the electron gun.
The ability of the target to store the electrons.
The retention of the charge by the target. Due to the constant bombardment of the target by
the solar wind that comprises ionized particles, it is expected that the charge of the target will
dissipate over time.
The dynamic response of the target trajectory under the influence of the deflecting force.
In conclusion, civil and government satellites as well as manned missions are currently
exposed to the growing risk of collisions with debris, which may result in costly incidents, or
accidents that could take human lives. It is essential to have a solution implemented as soon as
possible. As of today, the electromagnetic deflection approach seems to be one of the most cost
effective, most realistically achievable and least risky. It deserves to be further evaluated and
pursued.
Space debris not a threat to humans
Chun 11, space debris analyst and contributor at People’s Daily, (Yao, 9/28/11, Experts: No
need to worry about falling space debris, http://en.people.cn/202936/7606918.html) //AK
As more and more satellites are being launched into the space, will the debris of the failed
satellites bring disaster to earth? The experts from the Center for Space Science and Applied
Research (CSSAR) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences say: "Don't panic, space junk will not
fall on your head."
"Recently some reports may have caused certain panic in the public, who are worried that
space debris will threaten people's survival. But, in fact we can rest assured that space debris
will not hit people because the probability is minimal," said Gong Jiancun, deputy director of
CSSAR.
Space debris will not pose a threat to humans, he said. However, the real reason why scientists
are concerned about space debris is because of its potential to harm or hinder spacecraft.
Since 1957, when the first artificial satellite was launched into space, the amount of space debris
has increased year by year. As of this week, there are more than 16,000 pieces of debris with a
diameter of more than 10 centimeters in space, according to observation data from the United
States.
This debris is distributed in different earth orbits: low orbit, hundreds of kilometers away from
the earth; moderate-altitude orbit, thousands of kilometers away, and high orbit, tens of
thousands of kilometers away. Because of this, the debris is not concentrated in a dense region
of space.
Generally speaking, space debris is divided in three categories: large space debris, with a
diameter of more than 10 centimeters; small space debris, with a diameter of less than 1
millimeter, and dangerous debris, with a diameter between large and small debris.
"If the debris falls to the earth, most of it will be burned away by the high temperature of
thousands of degrees produced by the high-speed friction with the atmosphere. Even if a large
chunk of space debris penetrated the atmosphere and posed a threat to the earth, mankind
should be capable of defending against it," Gong said.
First, we can roughly estimate its orbit. With the estimation of its orbit, we can intercept it.
Gong said that the U.S. has successfully intercepted a failed satellite using a missile. That
satellite contained highly toxic substances. In order to prevent it from falling into the sea, the
U.S. destroyed the satellite by a missile launched from a warship. China also has similar
technologies and can disintegrate it in the space before it causes harm."
"Scientists also have come up with many other methods to clear the space debris. For
example, we can leave some fuel in satellites and control the satellite to fly out of the original
track," Gong said. "Some countries have developed passive technologies, such as launching a
spacecraft to catch space debris and take it away. Other countries are developing satellites
with mechanical arms, which not only can repair satellites but also can pull the failed satellites
out of the orbit."
However, these technologies are not very mature. It is still uncertain when they will come into
use, he said.
China turn
Chinese and U.S. tech industries are zero-sum – surveillance crowds out the U.S.
market
Castro and McQuinn 15 – * Vice President of the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation and Director of the Center for Data Innovation, B.S. in
Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an M.S. in Information
Security Technology and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, AND
** Research Assistant with the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation, B.S. in Public Relations and Political Communications from the
University of Texas (Daniel and Alan, Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S.
Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness, Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation, June 2015, http://www2.itif.org/2015-beyond-usafreedom-act.pdf?_ga=1.33178294.940386433.1435342104)//JJ
Protectionist policies in China have further strained the U.S. tech industry . In
January 2015, the Chinese government adopted new regulations that forced
companies that sold equipment to Chinese banks to turn over secret source
code, submit to aggressive audits, and build en cryption keys into their
products. 38 While ostensibly an attempt to strengthen cybersecurity in critical
Chinese industries, many western tech companies saw these policies as a shot
across the bow trying to force them out of China’s markets . After all, the Chinese
government ha d already launched a “de - IOE” movement — IOE stands for
IBM, Oracle and EMC — to convince its state - owned banks to stop buying from
these U.S. tech giants . 39 To be sure, the Chinese government recently halted this
policy under U.S. pressur e. 40 However, the halted policy can be seen as a part
of a larger clash between China and the United States over trade and cybersecurity.
Indeed, these proposed barriers were in part a quid pro quo from China , after the
United States barred Huawei, a major Chinese computer maker, from selling its
products in the United States due to the fear that this equipment had “back
doors” for the Chinese government. 41 Since the Snowden revelations
essentially gave them cover, Chinese lawmakers have openly called for the use
of domestic tech products over foreign goods both to boost the Chinese economy and
in response to U.S. surveillance tactics. This system of retaliation has not only led
to a degradation of business interests for U.S. tech companies in China, but also
disrupted the dialogue between the U.S. government and China on
cybersecurity issues. 4
A2: Big Data/Cloud Computing Add-On
Reject internet doomsaying – no chance of collapse or a ton of other stuff would
cause it
Bernal 14 (Lecturer in Information Technology, Intellectual Property and Media Law at the University
of East Anglia Law School)
(Paul, So who’s breaking the internet this time?, November 11, 2014,
http://paulbernal.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/so-whos-breaking-the-internet-this-time/)
I’m not sure how many times I’ve been told that the internet is under dire threat over the last few
years. It sometimes seems as though there’s an apocalypse just around the corner pretty much all
the time. Something’s going to ‘break’ the internet unless we do something about it right
away. These last few weeks there seem to have been a particularly rich crop of apocalyptic
warnings – Obama’s proposal about net neutrality yesterday being the most recent. The internet
as we know it seems as though it’s always about to end.
Net neutrality will destroy us all…
If we are to believe the US cable companies, Obama’s proposals will pretty much break the internet, putting
development back 20 years. How many of us remember what the internet was like in 1994? Conversely, many have been
saying that if we don’t have net neutrality – and Obama’s proposals are pretty close to what most people I know would
understand by net neutrality – then the cable companies will break the internet. It’s apocalypse one way, and apocalypse
the other: no half measures here.
The cable companies are raising the spectre of government control of the net, something that has been a terror of internet
freedom activists for a very long time – in our internet law courses we start by looking at John Perry Barlow’s 1996
‘Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’, with its memorable opening:
“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of
Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no
sovereignty where we gather.”
the UN, through the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was about to take over the internet,
crushing our freedom and ending the Internet as we know it. Anyone with real experience of
Another recent incarnation of this terror has been the formerly much hyped fear that
the way that UN bodies work would have realised this particular apocalypse had next-to-no chance of
every coming into fruition, and last week that must have become clear to most of even the more paranoid of internet
freedom fighters, as the ITU effectively resolved not to even try… Not that apocalypse, at least not now.
More dire warnings and apocalyptic worries have been circling about the notorious ‘ right to be forgotten’ –
either in its data protection reform version or in the Google Spain ruling back in May. The right to be forgotten, we were
told, is the biggest threat to freedom of speech in the coming decade, and will change the internet as we know it. Another
thing that’s going to break the internet. And yet, even though it’s now effectively in force in one particular way, there’s
not much sign that the internet is broken yet…
The deep, dark, disturbing web…
At times we’re also told that a lack of privacy will break the net – or that privacy itself will break
the net. Online behavioural advertisers have said that if they’re not allowed to track us, we’ll break the economic
model that sustains the net, so the net itself will break. We need to let ourselves be tracked, profiled and targeted or the
net itself will collapse. The authorities seem to have a similar view – recent pronouncements by Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe and new head of GCHQ Robert Hannigan are decidedly apocalyptic, trying to
terrify us with the nightmares of what they seemingly interchangeably call the ‘dark’ web or the ‘deep’ web. Dark or
deep, it’s designed to disturb and frighten us – and warn us that if we keep on using encryption, claiming anonymity or
pseudonymity or, in practice, any kind of privacy, we’ll turn the internet into a paradise only for paedophiles, murderers,
terrorists and criminals. It’s the end of the internet as we know it, once more.
And of course there’s the converse view – that mass surveillance and intrusion by the NSA, GCHQ etc, as revealed by
Edward Snowden – is itself destroying the internet as we know it.
Money, money, money
Mind you, there are also dire threats from other directions. Internet freedom fighters have fought against things like
SOPA, PIPA and ACTA – ways in which the ‘copyright lobby’ sought to gain even more control over the internet.
Again, the arguments go both ways. The content industry suggest that uncontrolled piracy is breaking the net – while
those who fought against SOPA etc think that the iron fist of copyright enforcement is doing the same. And for those that
have read Zittrain’s ‘The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It’, it’s something else that’s breaking the net –
‘appliancization’ and ‘tethering’. To outrageously oversimplify, it’s the iPhone that’s breaking the net, turning it from a
place of freedom and creativity into a place for consumerist sheep.
It’s the end of the internet as we know it…..…or as we think we know it. We all have different visions of the internet,
some historical, some pretty much entirely imaginary, mowith elements of history and elements of wishful thinking. It’s
easy to become nostalgic about what we imagine was some golden age, and fearful about the future, without taking a
The internet was never a ‘wild west’ – and
even the ‘wild west’ itself was mostly mythical – and ‘freedom of speech’ has never been
as absolute as its most ardent advocates seem to believe. We’ve always had some control
and some freedom – but the thing about the internet is that, in reality, it’s pretty robust. We,
step back and wondering whether we’re really right.
as an internet community, are stronger and more wilful than some of those who wish to control it
might think. Attempts to rein it in often fail – either they’re opposed or they’re sidestepped, or they’re just absorbed into the new shape of the internet, because the internet
is always changing, and we need to understand that. The internet as we know it is always ending
– and the internet as we don’t know it is always beginning.