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Swiss Army Breaks with Microsoft: "Cyber Command" Relies on Open Source
15 days ago
- The Swiss Army's Cyber Command and CEA units are switching from Microsoft to the open-source alternative OpenDesk by October, due to Microsoft's push towards its own cloud infrastructure.
- This move is driven by security concerns, as Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365 is deemed unsuitable for handling classified military data, with fears that U.S. laws like the Cloud Act could lead to data access by foreign intelligence agencies.
- Geopolitical risks, such as recent U.S. actions including sales bans and forced data handovers, have heightened urgency for digital sovereignty and reducing dependence on U.S. tech giants.
- OpenDesk, developed by Germany's Zendis, is part of a broader trend in German-speaking countries towards open-source solutions, with the Austrian Armed Forces migrating to LibreOffice and the Bundeswehr's IT system using similar software.
- Switzerland's 2024 law mandates disclosure of source code for government software to enhance transparency and reduce vendor dependencies, and the army is actively contributing to open-source projects, such as publishing its own document search engine, Loom.
Germany's richest man takes on Big Tech
17 days ago
- Schwarz Digits, part of the Schwarz Group, opens a new headquarters in Bad Friedrichshall, Germany, as a statement to compete with Big Tech.
- The Schwarz Group, founded by Dieter Schwarz, is a secretive retail conglomerate with significant revenue, expanding into digitalization and cloud services.
- Schwarz Digits aims to provide independent IT and cloud solutions for Europe, reducing reliance on US and Chinese technology, and has secured major contracts.
- The company is investing heavily in infrastructure, including an €11 billion data center, to attract IT talent and promote Germany as an innovation hub.
- Heilbronn is transforming into a knowledge city through initiatives like the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, education campuses, and an AI innovation park (IPAI).
- Despite smaller revenue compared to giants like Amazon, Schwarz Digits is confident in its long-term role in Europe's digital sovereignty and AI development.
Confidential computing's core trust mechanism is broken. The fix may not exist
24 days ago
- Confidential computing relies on remote attestation to prove a server runs in a genuine Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) before sharing sensitive data.
- New research reveals flaws in attested TLS protocols used in confidential computing, allowing relay attacks where a client’s connection can be redirected to a compromised server without detection.
- The study formalizes three levels of cryptographic binding for attestation, with level three (tying evidence to application traffic keys) potentially unattainable in current intra-handshake architectures.
- Real-world implementations like Meta’s WhatsApp, Edgeless Systems’ Contrast, and Cocos AI are vulnerable, leading to CVE-2026-33697, a high-severity vulnerability.
- Despite responsible disclosure, the Confidential Computing Consortium’s Attestation Special Interest Group delayed creating a repository for the research artifacts, raising concerns about vendor influence.
- Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) cautions that confidential computing alone cannot meet digital sovereignty requirements, highlighting dependencies on external services.
- Intel and Google continue marketing confidential computing for sovereignty, but Intel avoided addressing legal risks under U.S. laws like RISAA, while Google did not respond.
- The IETF has incorporated formal verification into its standards process, but the sales pitch for confidential computing often overlooks these fundamental security gaps.
- The researcher recommends abandoning intra-handshake attestation in favor of post-handshake methods to achieve stronger security guarantees.

digital sovereignty

Swiss Army Breaks with Microsoft: "Cyber Command" Relies on Open Source

Germany's richest man takes on Big Tech

Confidential computing's core trust mechanism is broken. The fix may not exist