“The cloud” is someone else’s server.
>“The cloud” is someone else’s server.
Just like this post. By using FR we engage in a trust relationship with its ownership that they will maintain individual profile and message content in a secure fashion and that they will release content to government only in accordance with their TOS.
I’m not going to be exhaustive nor am I a lawyer, but at least one cloud provider *says* in writing that they will not do what this writer alleges (turn over data without warrants, etc.; ref https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GYSDRGWQ2C2CRYEF)
There’s no technical reason one should fear a cloud per se; in fact they spend a lot of resources making sure subscribers’ data doesn’t get breached and are better at this than us and (most of) our home networks.
So then it comes back to trust. Do we trust FR if it were presented with a UK demand? Pretty readily; it’s not a multi-national company, its servers are in the US. Its leadership’s opinions largely align with ours on this topic.
Microsoft or Amazon or Google? Not very, despite the language. They do stand to be at financial risk if they defy the UK; and their leadership is definitely globalist. (The servers, however, are your choice and you can/should pick US servers).
In order to be exhaustively safe on this front you should not only skip direct cloud use but also all PC or mobile applications that store any files of yours of any sort in order to prevent falsely planted evidence. (Even so in the worst case I would expect the accused to demand that the audit trail on any such file be brought into evidence; the time/date, user identity, and IP from which supposed incriminating file X was uploaded would be exculpatory, and the lack of such information the same. It’s not like ye olde bag of drugs in the car; files come with a chain of custody).
Definitely, though, you owe yourself to know when you’re accidentally putting things in the world; what those are; and isolate their use. Too many applications, mobile apps, and IOT things will ‘share’ if you let them, which puts your data all over the place and further builds an easily read profile of your life for too many folks in and out of government to exploit.