Cloud Computing - Because there's a sucker born every minute

[Aabidano]

Good article by Richard Stallman, more of a current event than a computer topic. Good reminder that storing anything "offsite" has serious privacy concerns. "Regular" pop or imap email is different from hosted email, etc... Cloud services escalate the whole environment into a hosted services privacy concern.

The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company's machine's rather than your own, Stallman points out: "In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant."The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company's machine's rather than your own, Stallman points out: "In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bl ... an-warning

[Siji]

Good article by Richard Stallman, more of a current event than a computer topic. Good reminder that storing anything "offsite" has serious privacy concerns. "Regular" pop or imap email is different from hosted email, etc... Cloud services escalate the whole environment into a hosted services privacy concern.

The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company's machine's rather than your own, Stallman points out: "In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant.

"The risks include loss of legal rights to data if it is stored on a company's machine's rather than your own, Stallman points out: "In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own. The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you; but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bl ... an-warning

Double quote ftw!

[miir]

Convenience vs control.

Devices like the iphone/ipad are making people care less about security and controlling their data and more about easy access... and for a lot of people, it really doesn't matter that the government or law enforcement can access their personal emails, photos, documents... hell, they probably do it already.

I'll bet that your data is more at risk on a peronal laptop than on Googles 'cloud'

[Aslanna]

Which is why I don't have a personal laptop!

[Aabidano]

I'll bet that your data is more at risk on a peronal laptop than on Googles 'cloud'

If I was targeted by someone yes, you could extend that to desktops too, phone mail, etc.. I'm uninteresting enough not to be a specific target though.

Put all my data in with everyone elses in an indexed, searchable format and things change a bit.

[Hesten]

Here in Denmark, its a lot easier......personal information, like for example Social Security Numbers, are NOT allowed to be stored outside of the country...a leftover of some old war law, so we dont risk having the swedes or germans (both countries which we have been in war with) or anyone else for that matter, getting hand of stuff to blackmail people, or any kind of war documents.
That mean that my job at a company supporting hospitals look at clouding, but can't really take it all that serious, since no (and yes, i do mean no) clouding company so far have been able to guarantee us that the data will not risk being stored outside the countrys borders.

And yeah, the bloody devices fight is fun....were having a hard time telling doctors that their nifty new Iphone that they surf the web on at home can NOT be allowed full access to our network

[Aabidano]

US law is pretty stringent at some levels on transmitting and storing personally identifying information outside the country. In others it's so loose as to be ludicrous. The data brokers are a huge political force. Medical, SSNs and tax type stuff aren't supposed to be transmitted without an anonymization layer on the information for instance.

Someone's wireless number and IMSI\EMEI + some other data are fairly well protected. Presumably because they could cost a wireless carrier money if used for handset cloning or plain old toll fraud.

Amazing what people will put on a wireless device or do with one. As my sister said, "Smartphones don't require smart users".

[Winnow]

I encrypt everything that's remotely questionable or personal. It's so easy to do, it's not like it's a big deal and doesn't even slow anything down.

For some reason, I have a feeling that all the Truecrypt algorithms are already hacked but what the hell, it's the only thing you can do for security. It's still good for general security and I'm betting even if the gov't has hacked them, they'd hold back revealing it and only use it for high profile stuff like the Wikileaks stuff. (same as the code breaker story of WWII were the allies had crakced the Germans code but kept silent about it and even let an city be bombed as to not reveal that they knew how to decipher it)

[Leonaerd]

or maybe they'd focus more on the encrypted stuff since that's where goodies are more likely to be hidden

[Aslanna]

I laugh every time I see that Microsoft commercial.. "To the cloud!"

[Fairweather Pure]

I encrypt everything that's remotely questionable or personal. It's so easy to do, it's not like it's a big deal and doesn't even slow anything down.

For some reason, I have a feeling that all the Truecrypt algorithms are already hacked but what the hell, it's the only thing you can do for security. It's still good for general security and I'm betting even if the gov't has hacked them, they'd hold back revealing it and only use it for high profile stuff like the Wikileaks stuff. (same as the code breaker story of WWII were the allies had crakced the Germans code but kept silent about it and even let an city be bombed as to not reveal that they knew how to decipher it)

It was cracked by a homosexual male. The true story is facinating.

[Aabidano]

I use MS's encryption, it's good enough for my purposes, just make sure you backup your certificates. Dunno about trucrypt, it's probably fine. PGP has been thoroughly beat up and is still considered secure.

None of them are immune to a brute force attack, it's simply a matter of time until they break whatever you've used. How much time depends on who you've annoyed.

[Ashur]

I laugh every time I see that Microsoft commercial.. "To the cloud!"

Ha! So do I. I'm thinking about my wife's next laptop having Chrome OS on it so she can't install crap (and subsequently fuck up) the OSI. I'll sell it to her as being an advanced cloud computer. ;D

[Ashur]

I laugh every time I see that Microsoft commercial.. "To the cloud!"

Ha! So do I. I'm thinking about my wife's next laptop having Chrome OS on it so she can't install crap (and subsequently fuck up) the OSI. I'll sell it to her as being an advanced cloud computer. ;D

[Animalor]

Just take any Netbook and install http://www.jolicloud.com/.

It's essentially what Google's trying to do with Chrome but you get the advantage of being able to install real applications like Skype and OpenOffice and actually ahve a file system.

It's a real slick little OS. What my wife has been using on the netbook for the better part of a year now.