Microsoft announced today that they will be taking additional measures to help protect their overseas users from NSA surveillance. The company will now be offering their foreign customers the opportunity to have their data stored outside of the United States. Microsoft will now become the first company to offer this type of protection for its customers. The NSA has managed to break into both Google’s and Yahoo’s private networks before, so there is not guarantee that offshore storage will prevent them from getting the information they are seeking. However, it does give added protection and will certainly make it more difficult on them, if nothing else.
Other countries have not reacted lightly to what the NSA has been doing. Brazil recently announced plans to completely cut its internet ties with the U.S. completely by running an undersea fiber-optic cable. In the meantime, Microsoft’s additional protection should help concerned parties. Though, some warn that it won’t stop the NSA from trying. “Just because you take steps to make it more difficult for the NSA doesn’t mean the NSA packs up their stuff and goes home,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist and senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union in a recent interview with The Verge. President Obama recently addressed some of these concerns on a domestic level, calling for action to limit access to millions of Americans phone records.
This is in addition to other changes in an attempt to re-vamp the NSA surveillance activities that are currently being conducted. The NSA surveillance programs have been a major point of concern for people ever since Edward Snowden leaked confidential information about global surveillance programs the NSA had been running. This new program will, unfortunately, not be able to benefit Microsoft customers in the United States, but it does offer a comfort in knowing that the company is willing to go the extra distance to protect its customers private information.