With the cloud you don't own anything

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by Floodlit World

I remember we had the same problem when DRM first started. People spent hundreds of pounds downloading music from online stores, then one day, the stores were like 'sorry, we're going out of business, and our DRM will be discontinued so none of those songs you paid for will be working ever again.'

I just buy a TB drive every year or so, fill it up, label it, and then stick it in a box somewhere. I know they can crash and everything, but I haven't had one go so far, and I know that it'll be there if i need it.

Same thing here. When they cost more and I seemed to have time, I might recycle the drives.
Now, I just buy a 1TB or 2TB drive for a hundred or so, and copy everything I can on to it. Then I just store it somewhere. Always some in protected boxes, fire safes, safe deposit boxes.

They just sit there.Never seem to have to go hunt for a file.

It is one of those "just in case" things that make you feel good like insurance for the kids but you hope it is never used.

I know several other people who do the same thing.

Some things though that you might want immediately you can store online in Mozy or gmail even. But that is for info, records or even old pictures, not music or videos.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

They want to know everything about everybody to improve their personalized ad-targeting algorithms.

As clinically paranoid as that sounds, it is, unfortunately, quite plausible in Google's case.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

They want to know everything about everybody to improve their personalized ad-targeting algorithms.

^ =

The problem everyone has is that everyone wants a super-mobile device--an iPad, a Galaxy something-or-other, a Fire, and those all come with fairly limited storage. At the same time, everyone wants access to terabytes worth of media. It's a conundrum waiting for a wise solution.

For now, my wife and I have rolled our own dropbox-style set up with a Pogoplug and Goodsync. There was a bit of a learning curve, but we can use Goodsync to sync both of our laptops to one another, and then my laptop (with up-to-date files) to our Pogoplug drive, which we can then access from any device with a web browser, anywhere in the world. And there's no storage size limit--we can always upgrade the drive to a larger one and still have all our files ready to roll.

For now, I like having all my files on my laptop--I have a huge hard drive, so it's no problem. But I'm seriously considering the Slate, and in that case, I think I might just keep my documents at hand but access my media through the web interface. Keeps my files in a "local storage" situation, allows me enjoy a tablet.

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Look at what Google did with collecting everybody's Wifi data. And what happened? Were they severely punished? Does anyone really know if they have deleted any of the data? So, how can you trust any of them?

What does that have to do with storing things in the cloud?

Originally Posted by taustin

Are the danish courts going to pay to keep a cloud server going if the company goes out of business?

Of course not, and why should they? Data backup is not the governments duty but your own, and has nothing to do with privacy violations.

Who indemnifies the victim if soem kind of trade secret stored in the cloud is stolen by an employee of the cloud company?

The company in charge of the employee that stole the data, exactly as in any other case of stealing IP.

The cloud is a tool, but not the only tool of all tools. There are times and places for it, but Woz is correct: if it's not on your computer, it's not really yours.

What a weird way of looking at things.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by David Munch

What does that have to do with storing things in the cloud?

It shows that we can't really trust the gatekeepers with our data.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by David Munch

What does that have to do with storing things in the cloud?

It is a direct indication of the lack of trustworthiness of one of the largest cloud vendors (that being a big problem with cloud storage and applications: no security or privacy)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

It was unintentional in the sense that it wasn't some clandestine program by Google to breach people's security for their own nefarious purposes, as Hans seemed to be implying.

Well that isn't what unintentional means. Something doesn't have to be nefarious to be intentional.
I don't think senior management ordered it, but I do think (because they have admitted it), that people within Google did intentionally design and deploy wardriving code.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Well that isn't what unintentional means. Something doesn't have to be nefarious to be intentional.
I don't think senior management ordered it, but I do think (because they have admitted it), that people within Google did intentionally design and deploy wardriving code.

How could it be otherwise in a company of that size? I was once a programmer (industrial control) and the plotting and scheming that goes on in even that specialized, relatively stable environment, is phenonomal.

I have three friends who are IT managers in companys selling data storage and management to medium sized businesses. They have all built in back doors and in more than one case booby traps into the systems.

I have asked them why and get a longwinded explanation involving paranoid revenge scenarios or the more honest "Because I can". Generally their employers don't know about it officially, but if I have been told about it by them personally I am sure many others have been as well.

I try not to store any business or banking or other confidential information even on my own hard drives except for one external drive I have for that purpose and do not attach when I am online. Not that I think anyone particularly wants my info, but seems sensible (and easy and cheap).

Like they say with asassination, no-one is safe if someone really wants to kill you, no-one is safe if they really want your data. Cloud storage with Google is no more dangerous than gmail with Google or Hotmail with Microsoft or the many social networking sites. If someone targets you, even for advertising purposes, they can get information a lot of easier ways than by searching through your cloud data or the whole world's cloud data.

Helen

[StoryEnthusiast]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

They want to know everything about everybody to improve their personalized ad-targeting algorithms.

Very much agreed. They may not have any intention of doing it now, but they can if they want to at any time in the future. They are a profit-driven company after all. I just don't like to see this possibility becoming true, regardless of how small that possibility may seem to be.