Google Blog writes about Changes to the open Internet in Kazakhstan. The government has decided that any domain name ending in .kz has to be operated on physical servers within the country. Google has decided not to play that game, and instead redirects users to Google.com in the Kazakh language.
This isn’t just about a country wanting the economic business of servers within their borders. It’s also about the physical security of the servers. Servers that are within a country can be seized along with all the data they contain. This was the reason why Google never put Gmail servers inside China, and it’s one reason why it’s often a good idea to know where the physical servers of the email service you are using reside.
Encrypting email doesn’t really work in the long run. GPU (graphics processors) can crack a 6-character password like pYDbL6 in 4 seconds. I personally find it more comforting to find a company you can trust and keep my mail on their servers, outside access by anyone in the country should my laptop fall in the wrong hands. (Which means, before I go some place really sensitive, I disable mail synchronization into my phone, or opt to leave the phone behind…)
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