This is pleasing news, but to be honest I am a little concerned about the fact the Amazon didn't attempt one of these lawsuit earlier. I am not sure how cooperative AWS is with the government but I would assume they are the largest target for these types of requests. In general I like Amazon as a company but this makes me question their respect for user privacy.
https://blogs.aws.amazon.com/security/blog/tag/Transparency+...
However only one report (covering a 6-month period) has was issued and posted in the initial blog post on June 2015. None have followed:
http://d0.awsstatic.com/certifications/Information_Request_R...
(more likely the people who decided that all have new jobs now)
2) I'm only pleased if it works. I suspect in this environment it is going to flop and is largely for PR.
I have no idea why you're bringing up Amazon since the article is about Microsoft.
That said, assuming you're asking the question about MSFT: Microsoft has always been a lapdog of the Feds, as evidenced by handing over hotmail data simply from a pleasant LEA request, to centralizing and backdooring skype, to removal of the elephant diffuser, to jumping at the chance to join PRISM, to any number of chunks of evidence.
But now that data security is a marketable good (per Apple's example), MSFT feels the fiduciary duty to pretend to fight the Feds for profit.
Whenever a fundamentally evil actor gives a show of doing good, always follow the money.
I have no idea why you're bringing up that you have no idea why he's bringing up Amazon since the article is about Microsoft since the article is about Microsoft and the comment is about Amazon.
(in seriousness - good luck)
And it goes without saying that the gag orders should only be given in very specific scenarios, not for all data requests, or anytime the government wants to give one.
Hint: there's a reason the ACLU believes Citizens United was the right decision.
Political parties are very interesting in the sense that they are not public; not really at all. (but they should be). That's an argument for stricter laws when specifically dealing with speech and campaigns.
Keep in mind, free speech has limits. Obscenity, classified material, threats of harm ... Free speech in the US, although more complete than many other nations, is still restricted.
If you want to skip logging in.
If served a lawful subpoena, ANY cloud service provider may be required to hand over your data if they have that power. If you've got something truly critical (e.g., evidence you're transsexual in NC and use the "illegal"/correct bathroom) you should encrypt it even on top of what your CSP does. Windows, OSX and Linux all offer methods for doing this effectively.
I've used OneDrive with encrypted VHDs. It works fine, so long as you don't access the VHD from multiple places at once. I do this more because my OneDrive syncs to a surfacebook than because I am concerned about subpoenas.
As for the telemetry collected, it's probably not of any use to them. It's the same sort of stuff every app on your phone sends up to mixpanel. I wouldn't worry about that, as it's not a substantially greater privacy violation than the natural telemetry collected by the cell network and local ISPs. The only way it might be used against you is in proving a certain access pattern to the device at a certain time.
