Mastodawn

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has lost access to his (Microsoft) email and bank accounts. Prosecutions are faltering now. This all due to US sanctions. 'Microsoft did not respond to a request for comments'. Yet European governments are collectively moving their email and files to Microsoft, risking similar problems if they ever upset the US administration. https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-court-a4b4c02751ab84c09718b1b95cbd5db3

Trump's sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal's work

Nearly three months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. He has lost access to his email and his bank accounts have been frozen. American staffers at The Hague-based court also have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest. In addition, some nongovernmental organizations have stopped working with the ICC. Rights groups say these problems will prevent victims of war crimes from getting justice.

AP News

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦May 15, 2025

And not only was this predictable it was predicted: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/you-can-no-longer-base-your-government-and-society-on-us-clouds/

It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds - Bert Hubert's writings

The very short version: it is madness to continue transferring the running of European societies and governments to American clouds. Not only is it a terrible idea given the kind of things the “King of America” keeps saying, the legal sophistry used to justify such transfers, like the nonsense letter the Dutch cabinet sent last week, has now been invalidated by Trump himself. And why are we doing this? Convenience.

Bert Hubert's writings

Asta McCarthy May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert Nederlandse overheid als het om Amerikaanse cloud gaat:

Urzl May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert Those are the ones that bother me the most. Not only could we see this coming, we *did* see it coming, hollered about it, did everything we could to convince people to change course and ran headlong into the problem anyway.

Short of violent revolution to seize control, everything was done to avoid this outcome.

Peter H May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert And Dutch Universities just say "Don't respond to questions about DEA from the US."... well, you'd better make sure you've got access to your data because this is a risk.

The chance Trump will force companies to stop offering services to institutes that don't do what he wants is too big to ignore.

Isabel Ruffell May 15, 2025

Is it really convenient, though? Except in the sense of reducing in-house expertise?

🇸🇪May 16, 2025

@bert_hubert On the other hand, more and more government organizations are moving to Microsoft and other such companies for basic infrastructures.

Corb_The_Lesser May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert No government or public institution should use Microsoft, Google, or any other corporate provider for official and internal email. Why do they have that level of trust?

@Corb_The_Lesser @bert_hubert This is true, and it has been true since long before Trump, and it is true both within and without the US. But I'm jaded and long past beating that drum, personally. More power to those who still can do so, though!

Erik Jonker May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert ...this would already be a problem if the geopolitical situation was stable, if we had excellent relations with the US, if there was a stable democracy and government with checks&balances in the US.... all this is not the case.

ProScience 🇪🇺May 15, 2025

diesUndDasMitTassen 🇺🇦May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert no one intends to use the cloud against you, trust us, because... we trust you, äh, we trust ourselves, lots of others trust you, ähm, nsa, fbi, cia Trump administration trusts us also - isn't this enough? trust through inheritance? we know everything about all the people you trust in and those trusting in you, no one knows more about everyone

Daniel Quinn May 15, 2025

You cannot trust any US company anymore. Arguably, you never could, but the fact that so many EU companies and governments have trusted their entire tech infrastructure to companies like Microsoft is horrifying.

There are better, safer, EU-based alternatives. Opting for US-controlled ones is both lazy and stupid.

https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-court-a4b4c02751ab84c09718b1b95cbd5db3

Trump's sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal's work

Nearly three months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. He has lost access to his email and his bank accounts have been frozen. American staffers at The Hague-based court also have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest. In addition, some nongovernmental organizations have stopped working with the ICC. Rights groups say these problems will prevent victims of war crimes from getting justice.

AP News

F4GRX SÃ©bastien May 19, 2025

@danielquinn what amuses me is that microsoft made sure to be considered as "reliable" for european companies by just relocating some cloud storage facilities in europe.

Rupert Reynolds May 19, 2025

@danielquinn The only USA-based things I really trust now are open source software, plus my Framework Laptop 13 and the SanDisk memory card in my phone.

I tend to buy stuff from Europe and China, or UK when we make the right thing.

Mythic Beasts run my server in Europe (very nicely).

Every time I see USA in action, I think "knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing".

Sorry to my American friends. But it's not too late to stop building the Torment Nexus, you know...

Helianthus May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert Why would someone have a Microsoft (or google or yahoo or their alikes) email account at all, to begin with? Let alone if you are a high ranking business or political person and even use it for work! 🤯

Ronny Lam May 15, 2025

@theseeduneed @bert_hubert

dig mx icc-cpi.int +short
5 icccpi-int0i.mail.protection.outlook.com.

The ICC is working from a 365-domain. It is not a personal account or something.

Kraftwerk-Das Model Collapse May 15, 2025

@theseeduneed because self hosting email is not viable at all for the average person, and even if you're in tech it can easily become a full-time job. Email is thoroughly fucked thanks to (anti)spam.

Robyn Nuthall May 15, 2025

@dngrs @theseeduneed

I'm afraid you are right about that. Being a layperson and running email hosted by a 'local' provider is even hard. .... something goes wrong and there are so many possible points of failure it's not good. Sigh!

Alberto Cottica May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert strategic autonomy strategic schmautonomy

Ronny Lam May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert This would never have happened if the ICC where not in the US-cloud, or any cloud for that matter. This proofs once and again that (on-prem) self-hosting is the best option.

Kraftwerk-Das Model Collapse May 15, 2025

@ronnylam the viability of self hosting email is pretty questionable if reliability is a concern. Doesn't mean US companies should be entrusted with it of course.

Ronny Lam May 15, 2025

@dngrs True, that's why there are also European cloud providers that can deliver such things as a SaaS, make backups, etc. I was impressed by Nextcloud hub 10, last week at their Enterprise day. It looks like a complete O365 alternative.

aproitz May 15, 2025

Hier sieht man genau, wie #Microsoft schon unter der #Einflussnahme als #Erfüllungsgehilfe der #Trump-#Administration steht. Alle anderen sind jetzt auch in #Gefahr. Ein #Exodus aus diesem #Betriebssystem wird zwingend.

Peter Brown May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert the USA is a rogue state and simply cannot be trusted. People, states and businesses should have nothing to do with them.

JeffreySmith 🌻🍉🇨🇦May 15, 2025

@peterbrown @bert_hubert

Yes. One shouldn't feed a cancer. Also, it is particularly important to deny one's custom to trump's most important supporters: Amazon, Twitter, Tesla, Airbnb, Facebook, Walmart etc. The UK has the best anti-Musk memes. and has now joined Europe in repudiating the #SwastiCar with sales down in April by 69%.

sonja dolinsek May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert wow! Wtf?

Richard de Waard May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert 'The February order bans Khan and other non-Americans among the ICC’s 900 staff members from entering the U.S., which is not a member of the court. It also threatens any person, institution or company with fines and prison time if they provide Khan with 'financial, material, or technological support.'”

Gary Houston May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert I'd have thought that Europe was capable of providing an email server and a bank account. Why is it even an issue?

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦May 15, 2025

@ghouston read the article perhaps?

Gary Houston May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert alright :(

tessarakt May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert why would the ICC host anything in the Microsoft cloud? Up to this day I thought that these are intelligent people.

aspragg May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert something something Someone Else's Computer.

Tobias Fiebig May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert "Oh, no, Tobias, you are exaggerating! They would NEVER do something like that! That would be ILLEGAL!" 😕

Really frustrating how quickly it becomes apparent. 😟

OpenSourcerer May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert Another example why we need to put more effort in the EU into moving away from Big Tech

🍉 –Hans Bot– 🙃May 15, 2025

@bert_hubert Where’s the outrage? The kingdom of the Netherlands is supposed to protect the ICC and to represent it diplomatically. Justice for justices!

Douwe May 16, 2025

@bert_hubert @marleenstikker Deze had niet misstaan in je presentatie gisteren.

Dank trouwens ook Bert; fijn dat je kon komen ❤️

#StaanVanHetInternet

Marleen Stikker May 16, 2025

@bert_hubert @douwe Klopt. Koude rillingen. En dus toch ook e-mail weer in eigen huis halen!

Patrick Dersjant RCX May 16, 2025

@bert_hubert TIL that if any Dutch Microsoft employee was involved in this, they could be liable for eight years in prison on the basis of the new art. 104d Wetboek van Strafrecht.

Tobias Opialla May 17, 2025

@bert_hubert
The @[email protected] provided @nextcloud to bodies of EU, as e.g. @[email protected], #ECHA and @EUCommission all use MS-Teams/O365 and demand the same from member states. More than a year ago EDPS demanded, that EU bodies stop certain data flows to these products by end of 2024. https://www.edps.europa.eu/press-publications/press-news/press-releases/2024/european-commissions-use-microsoft-365-infringes-data-protection-law-eu-institutions-and-bodies_en

AFAIK Commission currently sues (did sue?) EDPS for this. I hope this gives a new take on the debate as now it is not "only" a GDPR-infringement plus some "alarmists scenario" but a very real threat.

European Commission’s use of Microsoft 365 infringes data protection law for EU institutions and bodies

Following its investigation, the EDPS has found that the European Commission (Commission) has infringed several key data protection rules when using Microsoft 365. In its decision, the EDPS imposes corrective measures on the Commission. The EDPS has found that the Commission has infringed several ...

European Data Protection Supervisor

alina🐾💖✨🏳️‍⚧️May 17, 2025

@bert_hubert and for the people who say the solution is the upcoming European Sovereign Cloud: it is my job to design it for AWS, whereas every datacenter and engineer needs to be European, and all our communication depends on Microsoft Outlook and Slack -.-

@bert_hubert do they use Windows computers? Will they also stop working? I guess if sanctions then Apple are out too.

If they use Linux, etc, will the US go after any US based contributors to open source projects?