Now might be a good time for el Reg to follow up on the Danish govt. dept. switching from Microsoft and a similar recent stories. I'm sure Denmark is treating this very seriously indeed. The way things are going they might be looking for the rest of the EU and NATO to stand up with them unless Trump's attention span runs out over Greenland and he heads off in some other direction.

The USA has proven, beyond any semblance of doubt, that it can no longer be depended on as a serious partner and ally in the long term. Even if Obama got re-elected, it wouldn't change that fact.

As things stand now, it's not even certain that Trump would order US forces to defend Taiwan if (when ?) China tries to invade.

Since this absolute absence of intelligence has been re-elected by all the Democrats not bothering to vote, his mantra has been "why pay US dollars for everyone else's benefit ?". What is beyond his single-neuron mind is that the US is not paying for everyone else, it is ensuring global peace. That is a position that people vastly more intelligent that him (Eisenhower, to start with) have understood since decades, but given that His Orangeness fires anyone who gives him a headache, there's a fair chance that Xi is going to have a good shot at taking over the world's prime CPU manufacturer.

Since the orange shitgibbon prefers McDonalds, he won't see the problem and won't care about any consequences since he won't feel any.

This needs to be more than a wish for open source technology. This needs to be a presumption in favour of domestic suppliers, physical infrastructure and home-grown solutions.

Europe has been following these policies for decades - particularly when it comes to foreign ownership of companies - and are at least resisting the heavy lobbying and commercial pressures of US influence. We cannot claim to be so resilient.

The UK doesn't have a meaningful industrial strategy in this area, and has watched as chips, cars, drones, manufacturing, robots and many other areas where we could excel have been 'offshored' to America, China and now India. Without a serious change, we're essentially in a state of managed (or unmanaged!) decline.

Sad it's come to that. We used to be able to presume a special relationship and a certain trust which just died after 2016, which once upon a time, used to extend to things even more foundational than IT policy.

But suspicion and distrust are now warranted, and as history shows, everybody is better off when that's not the case.

Don't fool yourself. The special relationship was bullshit in the 70s when I was a kid and I would suggest that goes all the way back to WW2 when they leased us tanks.

The US has never cared about the UK as anything more than a convenient place to sell crap.

What's bollocks and where you're fooling yourself is not appreciating the impacts on policy when the people here and their leaders widely believed it for so long, and how bad it is when that shifts to now being a dismissed concern, and the base cheers it. The right-wing commentators have gone from protecting NATO and free trade to using Andrew and Harry as a punchline. That does impact policy.

Name one former US president who didn't give a damn if Europe was gobbled up by the Russians.

Might want to skip the WWII (and post) reference. Many might remember a geographically-isolated country sending on over more than just machinery.

"The US has never cared about the UK as anything more than a convenient place to sell crap."

Not really. During the Cold War, the US cared about having the UK as its unsinkable aircraft carrier in the North Sea.

Apart from junk food, the US can't even export or manufacture crap these days. They've got fuck all the rest of the world wants to buy.

"Apart from junk food, the US can't even export or manufacture crap these days"

They still make some decent guitars but I won't be buying any more. Not now.

…and more than a few over expensive over-hyped guitars too. Gibs… [cough cough]

It makes me feel quite queasy every time I hear that saccharin “special relationship” bollox. There has never been any such thing except in the minds of some wishful-thinking British politicians. I do note that those politicians rarely use the term these days though

...and before anyone gets too excited blaming recent events and world leaders, it should be pointed out that this has been the state since the eighties when we relaxed the rules about corporate ownership, and handed over most of our computer industry to America.

handed over most of our computer industry to America or Japan.

But it used to be broad consensus here that Brits were our best friends. It was usually the case that a bit of protest through the right channels would make things right. Financial ties were deep. Trust was there.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Churchill

What changed recently was 1/3 of the US electorate being willing to cheer whatever one leader does, even if it screws over our best friends. The attitude on the street here now is rightfully alarming.

We're now to the point where one NATO member is threatening to seize territory from another, and the US public cheers that, too. That seems far more alarming than something like AI being trained on private data in violation of UK law.

Count on us, anymore, even in the end?

Sure, the atmosphere has been more convivial, but that doesn't mean we were doing the right thing by handing everything over to our very nice friends.

The turn in politics has made everyone nervous, but the problems have been embedding themselves for years - like the heart attack victim blaming the attempt to run a marathon and not the three decades of eating cake beforehand.

But there's also a hard line versus a soft line approach to tech sovereignty. The hard line approach looks at borders, while the soft line approach is willing to also consider friendships.

Consider how US big tech is utterly dependent on Taiwan, South Korea, and The Netherlands. The US made itself dependent there, which might have been a concern, but wasn't a danger until US leaders started turning their backs on friends.

That's where recent alarming actions make such a difference. Recent actions in Venezuela have created a geopolitical permission structure which puts Taiwan at severe risk. Recent comments about seizing NATO territory have alarmed the Dutch. If the Brits have a complaint about US tech policy, it's now guaranteed to fall on deaf ears. This administration disdains diplomacy and the rules-based international order, and that's putting the entire tech sector at risk because of just how global and big-scale tech is. Instability is now breeding further instability in a self-perpetuating loop.

But much of that is also downstream from UK domestic issues.

Consider things like high-value AI development and all the datacenters which come with it.

What's the price of a kWh in the UK and how long does it take to get planning permission?

Agreed the problems have been building for years but politicians - and others - usually only look at the short term. It's taken the turn in politics to make the issue immediate. Even now I'm not sure it's sufficiently immediately obvious to get govt. attention.

On the other topic, I have never had any intention of running marathons.

" handed over most of our computer industry"

What computer industry? Fushitsu/ICL? Sinclair? er...? I'm struggling to remember the names of other UK based computer manufacturers.

There was a company called Acorn. They'd probably be a distant memory except that you can almost certainly reach out and touch a device using their RISC architecture.

There's a good chance you're reading this on one - I'm certainly writing on one.

And most of our electricity supply, water supply, phone systems…..

" The UK doesn't have a meaningful industrial strategy in this area

Empirically, I think you'll find it does have one, and it is the same as most capitalist ones - the race to the bottom, where everything is decided on price.

Every time an industry is in trouble, it always seems to be because what it makes can be sourced from elsewhere for less cost. Business financials these days dictate that If its cheaper to buy in what you need,then why make it yourself? It's the easiest way to either trim costs so you can (a) pay dividends to stockholders, (b) ease pressure on you margins. If that means you have to let people go, then so be it....tough luck, but the balance sheet doesn't lie when it comes to cost centers.

ISTR being told by a local fisherman that he's take the boat out and fish UK waters, but it was cheaper (or more profitable) to land the catch in Europe and have it transported back here 1 .

What the balance sheet doesn't hold is a measure of value. We all know that, when competing, you have to add value...and one of the big values you can have is in-house skills relating to your products or services. What we've got here now is a whole bunch of SMB 'manufacturers' (Box shifters/VARs, not *real* manufacturing!) who's core competence is biased towards 'in/out/ shipping logistics, rather than actually knowing their product.

There's a lot of UK stuff that's been sold over the years to foreign buyers or investments...water/sewage companies etc., electricity distribution @ DNO level 2 and so on. We've sold a lot of our competence away:-)

[1] I trust the guy, but this was a while ago now so may no longer be true!

[2] The tech angle on this story is that my DNO, UK Power Networks, is owned by CK Hutchison who do/did the '3' mobile phone network here.

" We all know that, when competing, you have to add value...and one of the big values you can have is in-house skills relating to your products or services."

In manglement thinking adding value has been replaced by cutting costs. There really ought to be scope for businesses who opt to add value to prosper.

>told by a local fisherman

That's interesting but it doesn't make sense.

British fisherman either sell at auction at the port they land their catch, or they already have contracted with buyers who are waiting with their lorries at the quayside - and many of those lorries then drive directly over to the Continent which is where the greatest demand is. Been that way for decades now.

Fishermen themselves just don't get involved in trucking fish across borders. That's a specialist niche industry.

And cost of landing a catch is small and is going to be about the same whereever you do it.

Only way I can suggest the fisherman's story makes sense would be if he had landed his catch in a Continental port because that's where he could get the best price - and that very often is the case. And the bit about transported back to the UK he wasn't meaning he'd be doing it himself but was assuming it would happen after processing.

The UK doesn't have a meaningful strategy in any area.

FTFY.

I'm a Yank who won't do a damn thing with US tech giants.

Personal mail/sever in Europe.

Don't keep your data in Trumpistan. Even Europe's extreme right doesn't trust Trump with their data.

Personal mail/sever in Europe.

Won't that mean that the NSA is copying everything coming to you and going from you?

They're not as good at breaking modern encryption as you think they are.

And right now the US government is more interested in arresting people for being brown than encryption.

Precisely.

And if "the best available practices" are that easily breakable, then that would be a much bigger, global-IT-panic inducing state secret than anything in my personal email.

Much smarter to keep exploits like that secret until they really count.

They're not as good at breaking modern encryption as you think they are.

Maybe not, but - like many other agencies - they will be storing it until they can.

Recent-past data that can be searched automatically can still be incriminating.

>Don't keep your data in Trumpistan

You're a Yank but you don't say where you are. If you're in the US then I suggest you'd be wiser to use a mail server in the US. That way, to legally get their mitts on you data your govt agencies have to jump through various legal hoops and get authorisations signed off. Whereas if you use a mail server outside the US then it's a free for all and those agencies can & do legally help themselves to your & anyone else's data, anyway they're able. Deep packet inspection is likely to be happening automatically everytime you connect from the US to your European mail server. And of course same applies to Britons using mail servers abroad - GCHQ will be watching.

Best thing to do is run your own mail server.

Second best is use a reputable mail server within your own borders.

>Even Europe's extreme right doesn't trust Trump with their data.

Piffle! How on earth do you know that?

I very much doubt anyone who could be described as "Europe's extreme right" are any more clued up about this subject than the rest of the public.

> If you're in the US then I suggest you'd be wiser to use a mail server in the US. That way, to legally get their mitts on you data your govt agencies have to jump through various legal hoops and get authorisations signed off. Whereas if you use a mail server outside the US then it's a free for all and those agencies can & do legally help themselves to your & anyone else's data, anyway they're able.

Those authorisations, at best, have become nothing more than a rubber stamp if one official in one county fills out a form promising it's legal, they swear!

In theory, the provider's lawyer could work with mine and it might be possible to quash it in court.

But no provider will do that for non-enterprise customers. Consider total revenue versus the hourly cost of a lawyer.

> I very much doubt anyone who could be described as "Europe's extreme right" are any more clued up about this subject than the rest of the public.

Clued up and trust are two different things. Those operating on facts consider trust alongside truth. The extremes who are operating on trust, but choosing ideology over facts, still speak up for data sovereignty every time issues like this intersect US <-> European politics. If Washington wanted Big Tech to keep walking the line between ok and dodgy, they at least shouldn't have pissed off our friends with dangerous, dishonest, and quite frankly, unstable behavior.

The whole CLOUD Act thing seems to have come about because US law enforcement weren't prepared (in one or more senses of the word) to do the work that had to be done to go through the legal channels in Ireland where it obviously wasn't just a rubber stamping exercise. That in itself should have been a good enough warning to European customers of large US service providers.

shurely shome mishtake!

A british government actually put this country first rather than shovel billions to indian or US firms?

that will genuinely be a first... they're still shovel things to oracle cloud now as well, just to genuinely hand over as much of our data and sovereignty as they can

Honestly, who here believes that they should have dependency on things that are completely out of their control to run their country? ALL tech giants are not reliable in this sense. Diversity is the key word here and our entire society seems to moving away from it in almost all aspects.

The UK govt. believe that but if by "here" you mean el Reg then they're not here so they need to be told. Whether they'll listen before it's too late remains to be seen but I have a nasty feeling they won't.

Well, by "here" I meant the readers of this article that are also reading comments.

The UK government may say they believe that but if they actually do anything about it (that's difficult and expensive BTW) remains to be seen. Your nasty feeling is likely reality. It seems to be an unwritten rule that nobody does anything unless they are forced to after it fails.

> ...what it sees as a strategic blind spot: the UK's reliance on companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and data analytics biz Palantir for everything from cloud hosting to sensitive public sector systems.

Where's Oracle on that list? They need to be called out more often.

They do, but not necessarily on this topic. Are they actually running DCs with customers' data on them? That's the critical factor here.

Unless we ban MPs and Lords from working for foreign owned companies whilst working as an MP / Peer and then for 5 years after leaving their post, this just isn't going to happen. It's bad enough when your other half owns huge outsourcing companies.

They take bribes (sorry lobbying) knowing full well there will be a nice cushy job after.

I suspect there could be a lot of interest in the development and adoption of common standards for IT services that would both help level the playing field for new entrants (though being a new entrant is always going to be some disadvantage) and create genuine competition by making it possible to move services to other providers without a vast effort - though it would have to be a serious effort and not simple tokenism.

We already have some - the UK government is supposed to prefer ODF for government documents, for example - but the determination to ensure compliance seems to be woefully lacking. The big win would be in getting some cloud computing standards and mandating them in procurement - although it would be a big effort, it doesn't need to be done all at once and the mere threat could well result in a shift in supplier attitudes.

There is a bit of a mixed history in creating technical standards that deliver genuine value, but the very different experience of the development of the mobile phone system on each side of the Atlantic does demonstrate that done right it can result in some big wins.

We're also at an ideal point in respect of AI: we're not yet dependent on it and there are sufficient doubts about its deployment (accuracy, remuneration of content providers, psychological and environmental harm) to reasonably justify a "research only" moratorium until these are resolved. That alone might be sufficient to finally burst the AI bubble and demonstrate that the suppliers are also more vulnerable than they imagine.

I don't see much real enthusiasm to confront the US administration on this, but failing to confront them on other issues seems only to have emboldened them so I don't really see we have anything to lose.