A Cloudy Future (Why are Microsoft, EMC, CA and others touting "The Cloud" as a breakthrough)

I've always considered my wife a little paranoid about her privacy. Although she has never done anything illegal or immoral, she sometimes acts as though the world is out to get her. To avoid leaving an electronic trail, she pays for everything in cash as much as possible and has, until recently, refrained from conducting any online financial transactions.

I, on the other hand, have been somewhat cavalier about protecting my privacy, believing there is safety in numbers. After all, out of some three hundred million folks in this country, what are the odds that I would be a target for something nefarious? Cyberspace is just too vast and ubiquitous. At least that's how I have perceived it up until now.

Then I read Friday's Wall Street Journal. Inside was a full five page "Special Advertising Section" sponsored by a consortium of companies, including Microsoft. Two articles were featured, "15 Ways the Cloud Will Change Our Lives" and "Creativity in the Cloud." I am always skeptical of any advertising that tries to tell me how wonderful life will be once I use their product, but I become very concerned when they tell me that I will have no choice in the matter. "The Cloud" is such a product that activates my spider sense.

Don't misunderstand my concerns. I'm not a technophobe. Technological advancements are greatly improving our lives every day. But can we trust the people who control the technology? Any technological breakthrough that is intended for the betterment of mankind can also be subverted for evil purposes. I have been distrustful of Bill Gates ever since he proclaimed his desire to de-populate the world using vaccines.

Now Microsoft and other companies such as EMC and CA Technologies are touting "The Cloud" as a breakthrough that will change our lives forever (whether we like it or not). Desktop computers are obsolete. Internal data storage will no longer be needed, as all of your personal information will be accessed through a sea of hundreds of thousands of remote servers using a handheld i-pad or i-phone. Data can be instantly assembled from multiple sources to develop a research project or a profile of you as an individual. How could anything go wrong?

The Journal ad quotes John Hagel, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, Deloitte's Silicon Valley-based research center:

The need for guidance will spawn new companies that leverage the insights from the many footprints we leave online. Now, for example, shopping sites might offer suggestions of movies or videos based on previous purchases. The next level will be companies that make those suggestions based on not just your activity on one specific site, but across a range of places -- what you watch on web TV, on YouTube, and other sites....

If a company can capture all my online activity, as it occurs in real time, it can have an integrated view of me as an individual and suggest things I didn't even know I wanted to look at.

Although the ad focuses on many potential improvements to our lifestyles and well-being, there are a few disturbing ideas as well. One of the articles mentions an experimental Cloud technology showcased at a recent trade show which promoted the concept of installing cameras in your bathroom mirror, "alerting doctors" of potential illnesses.

Here's a crazy thought: What if our beneficent government wanted to gain control of "The Cloud" to more easily identify potential enemies of the state? How farfetched is it to believe that the federal government won't eventually command this technology? FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has already exerted regulatory influence over the internet with the implementation of "net neutrality" regulations. This is just the first step, the "camel's nose under the tent", toward the goal of complete internet control.

Orwell knew the propensity for governments to desire the enslavement of their people, but he couldn't possibly imagine the technology that might so easily achieve it. Will the concept of "government transparency" be twisted into a scenario in which a ruling class lives in the "clouds" over a completely transparent citizenry?

Or am I just catching my wife's paranoia?

Andrew Thomas blogs at darkangelpolitics.com

RE: Yes, it does. And that’s not a good thing.

OK, this brings us to another question. What e-mail service can one use that does not store one’s private messages ?

Almost everyone I know uses either -— Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail ( Microsoft’s service ), AOL or Earthlink ( I believe that about covers most of the non-company/non-work e-mail services out there ).

Even ISP’s like Verizon store your e-mail messages on their servers so that you can access them anywhere in the world there is an internet connection.

If one does not like their private messages being stored in the servers of these Internet giants, what’s the better alternative for e-mail?

OK, this brings us to another question. What e-mail service can one use that does not store one’s private messages? Almost everyone I know uses either -— Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail ( Microsoft’s service ), AOL or Earthlink ( I believe that about covers most of the non-company/non-work e-mail services out there ).

Is that a serious question or are you trying to slip a fast one past me and hope I don't notice?? I'm asking that sincerely. OK, assuming you REALLY see no distinction there, here's my response. With POP based mail, the server only retains the messages till you download them, assuming you have your client configured to tell the server to delete messages on downloading. (Yes, I do realize there are some online services that only pretend to delete them so you can undelete them later, and yes, that is a problem but makes, more than invalidates my point) My client looks for new messages every two minutes, so as long as I have at least one machine up and running, there's always less than two minutes worth of emails on the servers, which it should be obvious to you is far less of a vulnerability than a complete historical archive of every email you ever sent or received.

And no, I'm not obtuse enough to leave them there so I can see them from multiple machines. I maintain my own backup and synchronize all of them on my end. Why, oh why, would I expose myself to a vulnerability I don't need to? If it saves even one problem, isn't it worth doing it right? {/liberal mode}

Lastly, NO, I'm very, very slightly perturbed about even that two minutes worth of retention, but just because I don't have the alternative all designed shouldn't stop me from announcing the shortcomings of the system as I see them. If the guy who invented the automobile didn't know people were ready for an alternative to horse and buggy, would he have bothered?

I’m most amused by the fact that we went from “dumb” thin-client terminals back in the early 90s to desktop PCs, and now we’re going back to thin-clients.

I believe MS is even considering a web-only OS that will boot (presumably using PXE) to the “Cloud” and provide all of your computing needs over the wire.

I can’t wait until someone tries to run Crysis 2 through the “Cloud.” I spent $1500 on a gaming desktop with the latest and greatest hardware, and while a ProLiant-class server or BladeSystem will run those games without issue, you put a few thousand “Cloud” desktops trying to run it, you’ll not only blow out the platform’s I/O abilities, the latency will be astronomical.

“Cloud” computing is for grams and gramps checking email and Skype-ing. Gaming will continue to need dedicated local hardware.

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